Colette’s date of sobriety is December 23, 2006, and on the date of this posting, she is celebrating fourteen years sober. In this episode, she shares her journey as a person in recovery from anorexia, depression, and alcoholism. Her’s is an inspiring story and she does a great job describing her early struggles as well as the joy she has found in being sober.
Topics and key points
- Childhood: Colette talks about her divorced parents and the influence they had on her alcoholism.
- Anorexia: Colette describes how hard she worked to recover from anorexia and the benefit of receiving countless hours of therapy.
- Bottom: Collette recalls an embarrassing and humiliating encounter with a neighbor after a night of blackout drinking.
- First impression with AA: Colette talks about her favorable first impression of AA in California.
- Early sobriety: A discussion of the proper use of will, and the need to white-knuckle it early in her sobriety.
- Atheism/Agnosticism: Colette talks about what it means to her to be a seeker.
- Friends: The importance of sober friends.
- Online Meetings: The difficulty with online meetings.
- Living a sober life: Collete wears her sobriety comfortably. She is solidly in AA, but she lives her life in the real world.
Memorable quotes
I started getting straight A’s in college and writing a lot of poetry and became anorexic. I had to leave England where I was going to school and I put myself into a treatment program for anorexia and depression. I went there twice and they told me that I should go to AA, but I didn’t think I had an alcohol problem. That was my parent’s problem. It was the furthest thing from my mind. —Colette
My neighbor came over and she said, “How are you feeling?” I said, “fine.” She said, “Do you remember anything? Do you have any idea how drunk you were? You were hammered. Do you have any idea what you did?” I had no idea what I did. She said, “You spilled red wine all over my floor, you spilled candle wax all over my carpet, you called my best friend a hooker, you hit on my brother in front of your husband. You owe me an apology, and you need to come over and clean it all up.” I did and the next day, I looked up in the Yellow Pages, and I called Alcoholics Anonymous. –Colette
I was willing to go to any lengths. I met a group of five women and we all had children the same age. We would go to meetings together and after the meetings go to a park and our kids were playing, and they had twenty years of sobriety at the time and they guided me. —Colette
I have my own life now. I like to keep one foot in the program, but I also do stuff. I have friends. -Colette
Resources
Read Colette’s poem, Parrish, An Unincorporated Community.
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