Sober Sunrise - AA Speaker Podcast

From Armed Robbery to a Purple Schwinn - AA Speaker - Jim B.

At 1 a.m., Jim rode his little sister's purple Schwinn to an AA member's house because meetings alone weren't quieting his head. A sandwich and an exchange of drinking st

I Didn't Know the Problem Was in My Hand - AA Speaker - Bob C.

Bob was holding a beer and asking what was wrong with his life. His AA story follows the answer through a family intervention, a sponsor who challenged "my program," and

I Needed a Drink Long Before I Ever Got One - AA Speaker - Dustin B.

Dustin stayed sober on fear and meetings for more than a year, then relapsed harder than before. His AA recovery changed when a sponsor took him through the Big Book and

The More I Tried to Stay Sober, the Sicker I Got - AA Speaker - Joseph G.

Joseph says the more he obsessed about staying sober, the sicker he became. His AA recovery changed when he stopped staring at the problem and committed himself to the St

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,

Nobody Will Know. God Will Know. - AA Speaker - Pat R.

At fourteen months sober, Pat accidentally tasted vodka and thought nobody would know. The AA foundation built through meetings, sponsorship, service, and washed coffee c

I've Been Around Airports for 50 Years. I Still Can't Fly - AA Speaker - Tom K.

Tom says being around AA is like spending fifty years around airports without learning to fly: recovery began only when he became willing to do absolutely anything, take

I Didn't Know AA Had a Skybox - AA Speaker - Charlie P.

Seventeen years sober, Charlie thought he had already experienced what AA could offer. Then deeper Big Book work showed him he had spent all those years in the cheap seat

The Pink Cloud Was Never Supposed to Turn Gray - AA Speaker - Chuck C.

Nearly twenty-one years sober, Chuck challenges an old AA assumption: the pink cloud is not supposed to fade when the Steps keep turning physical abstinence into a peacef

The Martini Became a Coffee Cup - AA Speaker - Michael D.

Michael turns his AA recovery story into a slide show where the martini keeps reappearing, until a hospital death watch, the fellowship, and nearly fourteen years of sobr

We Don't Want Change. We Want Relief. - AA Speaker - Bob B.

Bob got sober at twenty-four, but AA's harder lesson came years later: he did not really want transformation - he wanted relief without surrendering the behaviors that we

My Higher Power Has a Substation in My Computer - AA Speaker - Paul O.

Paul says his Higher Power has a substation in his computer: after working AA's Twelve Steps for nearly thirty years, he types his problems to God until an intuitive answ

You Won't Stand Any Closer to God Than This - AA Speaker - Tom L.

A Methodist minister admits that his darkest years came after he first entered AA, then explains how Big Book sponsorship, family reconciliation, and service taught him w

I Have More Time Sober Than I Did Drunk - AA Speaker - Laila M.

At twenty-six, Laila has ten years sober after entering AA at sixteen, and she makes a fierce case that an alcoholic's seat is equally worthy whether they drank for six y

Sponsorship Is the Cake - AA Speaker - Chad B.

Chad arrived at his sponsor's door ready to skip straight to Step Four, but a coverless Big Book and the complete Twelve Steps showed him why sponsorship was not merely t

I Found AA in a State Mental Hospital - AA Speaker - Rachel L.

Rachel entered her first AA meeting in a state hospital furious that they had brought the father of a movie star, then one sentence about an alcoholic seeing the pain in

He Didn't Make Me Famous. He Made Me Anonymous - AA Speaker - Paul O.

Paul expected God to make him famous enough to win a Nobel Prize. Instead, AA made him anonymous and taught a doctor who entered through the hospital psychiatric ward how

Hopelessness Made the Big Book Exciting - AA Speaker - Lee Y.

In an Orange County jail library, Lee found the Big Book directly in front of him and discovered on page 63 the same prayer he had been reading before his arrest. Hopeles

The Party Was Over, But I Kept Trying to Restart It - AA Speaker - Bob D.

Bob spent his final three years drinking alone, trying to restart a party that had already ended. After seven and a half years around AA, he finally bought the whole pack

When I Got Sober, I Could Finally See the Waltz - AA Speaker - Charlie C.

Alcohol once made Charlie feel as if ordinary life had broken into a waltz. Through sobriety, the Twelve Steps, and years in AA, he learned to see that same grace without