ESH: Kathy D - Went out at 13 years sober

ESH: Kathy D - Went out at 13 years sober

How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? Kathy D from Atlanta lays it all out in a raw, funny and painfully honest share that speaks straight to anyone who’s ever doubted whether they’re “really” an alcoholic. Kathy talks about growing up in an outwardly comfortable, inwardly broken family, that familiar feeling of a “hole inside”, and the first drink at 11 that “filled the hole” and made her feel complete.

She doesn’t soften the edges: from being “a pickle from the start” at university, to early treatment, halfway houses, and sitting in AA rooms thinking the happy, bright-eyed members must have had “frontal lobotomies”. The heart of her story centres on spending almost 13 years in AA without fully accepting Step One. She explains how that tiny gap in conviction let “slick, the disease” whisper that it was safe to drink again.

Her relapse, the Moët champagne toast, and a weekend of crack cocaine are described with brutal clarity and dark humour, including the moment she grabbed a beer just so there’d be “no question” she needed a new white chip.

From there, Kathy walks through going back to basics: being taken page by page through the Big Book, truly seeing the physical allergy, mental obsession and spiritual malady, and doing an 11‑hour fifth step where she breaks down realising, “I’m a poser.” She shares practical step work tips – like index cards for amends and writing the opposite of each defect – and stresses that sponsoring others never replaces doing her own work.

This share is aimed at anyone in recovery, especially those with time under their belt who feel dead inside or flirt with the idea of “moderation”. If you’ve ever thought you might be different, are you willing to question that story and go back through the steps one more time?