Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Sober Sunrise - AA Speaker Podcast

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 put him to work helping other alcoholics before he felt ready.

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Dustin grew up in an alcoholic home in Cambridge, Minnesota, feeling uncomfortable in nearly every situation long before his first drink at 14 gave him temporary relief. Childhood trauma, the loss of his father, drugs, overdose, hospitals, and treatment followed. He once spent nearly a year moving through institutions, outpatient care, and as many as a dozen AA meetings a week, then remained sober for just over a year on fellowship and fear without taking the Steps. When that fear stopped holding him, the relapse was immediate and severe. Dustin spent the next five years pointing to the house, cars, job, marriage, and children as proof that he could not be alcoholic, until those outward markers began falling away and a violent, self-destructive bottom brought him back to treatment. This time, the Big Book gave him a practical solution. He wrote inventory, completed a Fifth Step, met a sponsor who insisted on real amends instead of vague promises, began daily inventory and prayer, and started taking other alcoholics through the book at barely two months sober. Dustin’s central message is the paradox he learned through the Twelfth Step: if he waits until he gets better before helping others, he will never get better. Recovery came when the Steps connected him to a power greater than himself and made it possible to be present as a father, employee, friend, and sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Dustin B. from Cambridge, MN speaking at the Isanti Saturday Night Live Group in Isanti, MN - October 21st 2006

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

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 Steps, amends, testimony, and service.

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Joseph drank from childhood and eventually reached a point where alcohol occupied nearly every waking thought. He remembers waking in jail, asking what time it was, and being told he should worry about what day it was because he had been asleep for three days. While serving time, Joseph first heard about Alcoholics Anonymous from another prisoner whose honesty, openness, and freedom from resentment gave him something Joseph wanted, even though the man fully expected to drink again after release. Joseph attended AA meetings inside but arrived certain that the sick people around him needed his help. He planned to take only the Steps he liked, rejected sponsorship, and later decided that AA did not work because nobody reached him the way he expected. Online recovery rooms and a New Year’s Eve alcathon brought him back. A small Step group followed, then a man he spoke with regularly finally asked whether Joseph had a sponsor and announced, “Well, you’ve got one now.” Much of that sponsor’s guidance only became clear after his death. Joseph’s deeper change came when he stopped making sobriety itself his entire focus and committed to working the Twelve Steps. He describes surrender, hope, and faith in the first three Steps; learning to live in the present through inventory; laughing through a Fifth Step in prison; discovering the Sixth Step as a state of readiness; making amends instead of spending another apology; taking a daily personal inventory; and hearing his higher power through the testimony of other alcoholics. His pathway is toward self-acceptance: getting outside himself, working with newcomers, and receiving through service what he once tried to manufacture with alcohol.

Joseph G. from Royalton, IL speaking at the AA Downunder Group - July 20th 2007

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

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.

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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

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.

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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

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 the Steps, and stay useful.

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Tom, sober since September 15, 1978, shares what Alcoholics Anonymous taught him about living with alcoholism rather than searching for a loophole out of it. Born in Pennsylvania and introduced to heavier drinking while attending college in Ohio, he entered marriage and fatherhood wanting to be dependable but steadily became the opposite: he lied about his drinking, took company money, lost jobs, neglected his family, and repeatedly lowered the line he swore he would never cross. Even after a doctor identified alcoholism, Tom turned a controlled-drinking experiment into proof that he had passed the test, then stayed to give himself a graduation party. A geographic move and a country-club career could not stop the progression. When the job, home, finances, relationships, and hope finally collapsed, the AA meetings he had resisted became the only place left to go. Tom told a sponsor he was willing to do absolutely anything, and the fellowship began teaching him how to live through the Big Book, the Steps, a home group, prayer, accountability, and action. At a year and a half sober, legal and financial consequences returned, but another member helped him stop asking God to remove the burden and start asking for the strength to carry it. Tom follows that lesson through family decisions, General Service, sponsorship, and daily practice of Steps Ten, Eleven, and Twelve. Nearly thirty years into recovery, his message remains practical: it is not the meetings you make but the Steps you take, spiritual maintenance cannot wait until something breaks, and all anyone can stay sober in is now.

Tom K. from Jacksonville, FL speaking at The 42nd Annual New Hampshire Convention in North Conway, NH - April 11th 2008

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

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 seats without knowing there was a skybox.

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Charlie, sober since March 22, 1985, shares a funny and direct Alcoholics Anonymous talk about the difference between staying away from alcohol and treating alcoholism. He remembers discovering drinking at sixteen, regular blackouts, crashing his mother's car into a parked police vehicle, pawning his family's belongings, entering treatment, and making promises to his father that he sincerely meant but had no power to keep. AA gave him physical sobriety, but over the following years he repeatedly hit a wall and settled into a meeting-based program while dishonesty, self-will, isolation, and the bedevilments continued operating underneath his life. Surviving a plane crash briefly sharpened his gratitude, but the deeper change began when a sponsor took him back through the Big Book and showed him the material he had missed between willingness and inventory: selfishness and self-centeredness were the root problem, and alcohol had been his solution. Charlie describes revisiting inventory, completing long-delayed amends, practicing Steps Ten and Eleven daily, sponsoring other men, and helping build Austin's Primary Purpose Group around line-by-line Big Book study. His message is directed to the person with years in AA who is no longer feeling the fire: the full program is still available, the best years can still lie ahead, and nobody has to relapse before beginning again.

Charlie P. from Austin, TX speaking at Summer Serenity at the Beach in Destin, FL - August 26th 2010

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

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 peaceful way of life.

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Chuck had spent nearly twenty-one years carrying the Alcoholics Anonymous message when he gave this talk at the 1966 Monteagle Roundup. He begins by taking the spotlight off famous speakers and placing it back where AA lives: one alcoholic talking with another, making coffee, sweeping floors, visiting jails, and sharing the language of the heart in a quiet room. Chuck then asks what sobriety really means. During a twenty-five-year drinking career, he repeatedly achieved physical abstinence and still returned to alcohol; the miracle came when the program gave him a way to live peacefully, joyously, and comfortably with himself. From there, he challenges the idea that AA’s early honeymoon must fade, recalls the stubborn self-will that exhausted every personal resource he had, and insists that “here are the Steps we took” means action rather than reading, debating, or waiting for God to do the work. Walking through surrender, inventory, confession, amends, prayer, service, and the destruction of ego, Chuck describes the Steps as the actions that roll away the stone and make conscious contact possible. He came to AA willing to accept the unhappiest sobriety on earth if he could simply stop drinking. Instead, he found his health, family, work, usefulness, a God of his own understanding, and what he calls the whole package.

Chuck C. from Laguna Beach, CA speaking at the 1966 Monteagle Roundup in Monteagle, TN - 1966

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

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 sobriety replace it with a coffee cup.

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Michael grew up in San Francisco, flew during World War II, tried monastic life, studied theology, and built an award-winning advertising career across Portland, Los Angeles, New York, Sydney, and Kansas City while martinis gradually became the organizing principle of his life. By 1978 he was isolated at home, drinking roughly half a gallon of vodka a day, and making a blizzard trip in layers of pajamas and black leotards because running out overnight felt unthinkable. When he finally called for help, he collapsed in a hospital tunnel, spent five days in intensive care, and awakened paralyzed from the waist down under a death watch. Michael initially rejected the hospital AA meetings, but later found identification at Kansas City’s Plaza Fellowship and helped establish the Live and Let Live group in 1979. Approaching fourteen years sober, he uses a deliberately theatrical slide presentation to challenge several AA myths: the Steps are not casual suggestions, nobody graduates after completing them once, life does not become permanently manageable, and recovery means more than excusing behavior with “what do you expect from a drunk?” His program is built around change, inventory, learning through mistakes, accepting divine delay, and the three givings of giving, forgiving, and thanksgiving. The final slide replaces the old martini and black leotards with an AA meeting and coffee cup. As Michael says, there have been a few changes.

Michael D. from Kansas City, MO speaking at Chicago Roundup - July 20th 1991

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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 were wrecking his sober life.

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Bob started drinking at fourteen, was diagnosed as alcoholic at nineteen, drank his way out of Notre Dame, and repeatedly watched each fresh start collapse. At twenty-four, frightened by another multi-day drunk, he called Alcoholics Anonymous and met two men at a diner who did not interview, diagnose, or instruct him; they simply shared their lives, and Bob recognized his own. He drank twice after entering AA, including a dangerous honeymoon relapse in Acapulco, but returned to meetings and stayed. Going to AA was easy for him. Living AA was not. Over the next several years, gambling, debt, anger, poor work habits, marital conflict, and harsh parenting followed him into sobriety while he quietly rebuilt the wall he had torn down as a newcomer. Around eight years sober, Bob discovered that he believed God could restore "us" to sanity but did not believe God could restore him. That second surrender changed his work, marriage, and parenting, but later success brought another problem: a period of "deep shallowness" in which money and status became his identity. After losing eight million dollars and facing a son's alcoholism at twenty-four years sober, Bob had to discover who he was without his wealth. His message after thirty-one years is that AA recovery is not merely mechanical and spiritual experience cannot live on yesterday's bread. Real transformation asks alcoholics to stop bargaining for relief, face the false self they are protecting, and move through the pain that opens the door to surrender.

Bob B. from St. Paul, MN speaking at the Sacramento Spring Fling in Sacramento, CA - February 13th 1999

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

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 answer begins to appear.

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Paul opens this AA talk by making the room hug, then turns to the balance he believes keeps alcoholics sober: meetings and the Twelve Steps together. He describes attending meetings while continuing to drink for seven months, quitting every morning, and living like a tour bus with no driver while different voices in his head took turns making decisions. Through the Steps, those voices began communicating, and Paul learned to use powerlessness as relief instead of defeat. He explains why Step Three must lead immediately into inventory, why every later Step deepens the ones before it, and why he has repeated the full process roughly every five years. Along the way, Paul shares the four-column inventory guides he helped develop, writing his first inventory in code, finally taking a Fifth Step at a San Diego convention, using spot inventories for marriage and money, and typing letters to God when he needs an intuitive answer. He talks about accepting the defects his Higher Power has not removed, forgiving people without pretending to like them, and viewing recovery as a baseball diamond stretching from physical to spiritual sobriety. After nearly thirty years, his focus is emotional sobriety: if somebody else's behavior is not worth taking a drink over, Paul asks, why reward it by becoming so upset?

Paul O. from Laguna Beach, CA speaking about working the Twelve Steps at the AA Desert Pow Wow in Indian Wells, CA - August 3rd 1996

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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 where God had been hiding.

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In this 1971 Alcoholics Anonymous talk, Tom shares how a five-day blackout, a worried wife, and an ultimatum from his employer brought him to his first AA meeting in Chattanooga. He attended to save his family and career, learned to describe himself as sick, and then kept drinking because he accepted the advice to discard whatever parts of the program he did not like. After losing his job and family and being found by two AA members on a New Orleans park bench, Tom returned to the fellowship but still tried to recover without surrender. Three years after his introduction to AA, an honest inventory and a sponsor who insisted on one clear path finally let some light into the darkness. Tom describes discovering that God had been hidden behind his ideas about theology and religion, then following a spiritual call from engineering into the Methodist ministry. Through anonymous help with his education, his wife's medical crisis, an embrace from the son who remembered his drinking, and carrying the message to another suffering alcoholic, Tom returns to one lesson: God appears when the door is opened through honesty, love, sponsorship, and service. He closes by honoring the three sponsors who taught him how to say "I love you," value what a person is over who they are, and leave Alcoholics Anonymous no less useful than he found it.

Tom L. from Luray, VA speaking in Palm Springs, CA - June 6th 1971

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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 years or sixty-six.

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Laila entered Alcoholics Anonymous at sixteen after growing up in an alcoholic home, using alcohol and drugs to bury fear and trauma, and reaching a dangerous emotional bottom that led to treatment. At first, AA sounded like strange slogans, and she misunderstood sponsorship so completely that she imagined finding a business to sponsor her like a Little League team. She began learning the program, received her six-month chip from her dying grandfather during a family AA meeting in his hospital room, and then moved from a thriving young people's fellowship to a town where older members told her she was too young and had not drunk enough. Laila eventually stopped attending meetings without taking a drink, but sobriety without connection left her sick, isolated, and unwilling. A woman who agreed to sponsor her for just thirty days met with her every day, took her through the Big Book and Twelve Steps, and restored her faith in Alcoholics Anonymous. Years of meetings, service, sponsorship, and repetition later, those actions carried Laila through the deaths of an aunt and her brother within days of each other. With the phone in her hand and the book in her lap, she kept calling, kept doing what AA had taught her, and stayed sober. Her message after ten years is simple: no one else gets to measure an alcoholic's bottom, the solution belongs to every member, and one more sober day is the gift worth passing on.

Laila M. from Stafford, TX speaking at the 3rd Annual Arkansas Traveler Roundup in El Dorado, AR - September 2002

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

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 the icing on recovery - it was the cake.

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Chad shares how his first drink at seventeen made him comfortable in his own skin, then traces the progression from weekend drinking to alcohol in the shower, drinking before work, blackouts, DUIs, and the realization that willpower could not solve his problem. About thirty days sober and certain he would drink again without a solution, he finally asked the AA member who kept checking on him to become his sponsor. Chad arrived for their first session with pencil and paper, eager to begin Step Four, but his sponsor slowed him down and started at the beginning of the Big Book. In this practical walk through the Twelve Steps, Chad describes recognizing his powerlessness in the Doctor's Opinion, turning his fear over to God, inventorying the resentment he carried toward his father, sharing his secrets, and making direct amends. Somewhere in that process, the obsession to drink disappeared. The deepest surprise came with Step Twelve: after receiving a two-year token he never expected to earn, Chad found himself giving one to a man he sponsored and realized that carrying the AA message was not the icing on the cake. Sponsorship was the cake, the icing, and the whole deal.

Chad B. from Fairborn, OH speaking at the Trinity Lakeside Group in Dayton, OH - February 6th 2009

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

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 his family's eyes broke through everything.

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Rachel got sober on December 1, 1978, after alcoholism carried her from childhood drinks with her grandmother into street life, trauma, hospitals, jails, family devastation, and a bottom where alcohol no longer stayed down. At a state mental hospital, detoxing in hospital pajamas with a broken denture and dirty feet, she refused an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting until a staff member told her the father of a famous movie star was speaking - and then made attendance nonoptional. The old man opened by calling the room a fine bunch of monkeys, but when he described looking into his wife and children's eyes and needing another drink, Rachel saw her mother's despair and felt something leave her. The speaker was Chuck C., and his message that he needed AA and people like her gave Rachel the first direction she could trust. Twenty-nine years later, after sponsorship, the Twelve Steps, and a life built inside the fellowship, Rachel describes reconnecting with her father, an invitation from her family, her mother's embrace, and the AA members she now recognizes as the hand of the God she had searched for all her life.

Rachel L. from Bakersfield, CA speaking at the Saturday Nite Live Group in Santa Maria, CA - March 22nd 2008

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

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 surrender, the Steps, sponsorship, and love in action could keep him sober.

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Paul shares a fast, funny AA talk about the strange route from being a physician on a hospital staff to becoming a patient on its psychiatric ward, where attending Alcoholics Anonymous was initially just his way to obtain a pass. He spent seven months coming to meetings before accepting that he was even a little alcoholic, then discovered that meetings alone were not a substitute for working the Twelve Steps. After twenty-two years sober, taking a drink is no longer an active concern, but thinking can still turn any small inconvenience into a carefully nurtured problem. Paul talks about sponsors who do not need to “reek with profundities,” the many competing personalities in his head, the spiritual equality of AA, and the freedom of letting powerlessness remove responsibilities that were never his. His central lesson is that recovery teaches alcoholics to express the love they once tried to suppress with alcohol. Through caring, sharing, listening, service, and making his wife's morning coffee exactly the way she likes it without expecting appreciation, Paul learns the difference between love and barter. The doctor who once imagined winning a Nobel Prize and making God famous instead finds something better: anonymity, usefulness, a marriage approaching fifty years, and the chance to become a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Paul O. from Laguna Beach, CA speaking at the Desert Rose Roundup - May 20th 1989

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

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. Hopelessness finally made AA's program exciting enough to try.

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Lee, sober since November 20, 1984, shares how a thinking problem and complete self-obsession preceded his drinking by years. As a frightened teenager unable to speak to the girl he loved, one bottle removed the fear and sent him onto his grandparents' roof declaring himself ten feet tall and bulletproof. The relief quickly became an unquenchable thirst, and the years that followed brought stealing, broken relationships, failed jobs, repeated incarceration, and moves across the country in search of a fresh start that never lasted. At his first AA meeting in New York, two members gave Lee something he had never heard from his family: "We understand." He was not ready then, but he remembered those words years later in a Florida jail. Weekly AA meetings led him to a jail library, where he found the Big Book, recognized himself in the jaywalker story, and discovered on page 63 the same prayer his wife had once given him. Lee began working the Steps while incarcerated and spent his first two years sober in a correctional facility, where service, prayer, and a small AA group taught him that he could find happiness even in prison. After his release, members surrounded him with meetings, transportation, sponsorship, work, and the insistence that he clean up his past. Through amends, education, service, and years of showing up differently for his family, the man who once believed he was worthy of being despised became someone whose presence brought forty relatives together. Lee's message is simple: AA does not work merely for people who need it or want it; it works for people who do it.

Lee Y. from Lake Mary, FL speaking at the Springtime in the Ozarks Conference in Eureka Springs, AR - April 2001

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

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 package and discovered that spiritual action worked whether he believed in it or not.

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Bob, sober since 1978, describes feeling like an outsider long before his first drink at twelve made him feel connected, whole, and finally good enough. Calling himself a "freeze-dried alcoholic waiting for alcohol," he explains how the craving took over from the beginning and how his search for the same effect carried him through drugs, institutions, legal consequences, and repeated attempts to control the uncontrollable. By the final three years, the social magic was gone and Bob was drinking alone, trapped by what he calls psychotic wishful thinking: all the evidence said the party was over, but he remained convinced he could somehow restart it. He had attended hundreds of AA meetings over seven and a half years without surrendering the private belief that drinking could remain his escape if life became painful enough. After reaching a dark bottom and landing in a Las Vegas detox, Bob finally attached himself to members who lived AA's primary purpose, called a sponsor every day, and began taking actions he neither understood nor believed would work. Those actions led him into service, the Twelve Steps, a relationship with God, and a twenty-eight-year process of awakening to other people. Through working with newcomers and hearing Fifth Steps, Bob discovered the comforting truth that beneath the details, alcoholics share the same fear, vacancy, and desire for connection. His message is that AA is "spiritual physics": take the actions, and recovery can awaken the life and sense of belonging alcohol once only seemed to provide.

Bob D. from Las Vegas, NV speaking at the Northern Plains Group of Alcoholics Anonymous in Fargo, ND - October 10th 2006

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

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 needing a drink.

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Charlie speaks to an Al-Anon audience about the alcoholic's side of isolation, love, and recovery. From childhood he felt "three clicks off center," burdened with potential but unable to turn it into a life. His first real drink dissolved the distance between himself and everyone else, giving him a feeling he calls "there": the illusion of joy, confidence, connection, and accomplishment without having to do anything. Over thirteen years of daily drinking, the mask grew heavier, his marriage collapsed, therapy stalled without honesty, and alcohol stopped providing the relief he kept chasing. Four days after his last drink, Charlie took his newly sober sister-in-law to an AA meeting intending only to drop her off. He returned the following week three and a half hours early because a bottle waited at home, and two members put him to work setting up chairs. That small act became the beginning of service, sponsorship, the Steps, and more than twelve years of sobriety. Charlie also shares how Al-Anon helped him understand the other side of alcoholism, how he made a long-delayed amends to his father at a cemetery, why meditation means staying still long enough to be found, and how recovery taught him that love is not merely an emotion but an action. By the end, the waltz he once saw only through alcohol has become his image for the grace, welcome, and shared movement he finds in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Charlie C. speaking at an Al-Anon conference in Minneapolis, MN - May 2001

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Eighteen months after entering Hazelden, David stood beside his AA sponsor and watched his smiling wife and daughter come up the driveway of what had once been a shattered home. His sponsor looked at him and said, "That's the promises of this program."

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David returns to the Hazelden campus where he began recovery and shares what changed after he arrived there broken on September 13, 2003. Reading from the questionnaire his wife completed during treatment, he confronts the reality behind his selective memory: twenty years of progressive drinking and using, a family forced to organize itself around his behavior, and a trigger list that ultimately amounted to waking up in the morning. He explains why remembering consequences never kept him sober, why he could neither drink nor comfortably live without drinking, and why treatment was only a beginning rather than a cure. Afraid he would drink at the airport after leaving Hazelden, David booked the first flight home before the bars opened, found a sponsor he initially wanted nothing to do with, and began reading the Big Book and working the Twelve Steps. What he discovered was not merely a way to stop drinking, but the spiritual change his sponsor had promised: the obsession lifted, his life became manageable, and the family home once defined by fear began filling again with laughter, trust, and the promises of Alcoholics Anonymous.

David O. from Chicago, IL speaking at Hazelden in Center City, MN - April 16th 2005

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

After years sober, Wesley watched complacency and self-importance drain the life from his AA program until practicing the Twelve Traditions personally made his Steps, his group, and his recovery come alive again.

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Wesley, sober since November 13, 1947, speaks about the Twelve Traditions as a personal way of life rather than rules reserved for AA groups and committees. He begins with the full triangle of Alcoholics Anonymous: recovery through the Steps, unity through the Traditions, and service through the Concepts. After about eight years sober, Wesley began missing meetings, concentrating on work and money, taking credit for other people’s sobriety, and quietly becoming what he calls a know-it-all in AA. His sponsor recognized the slide toward self-sufficiency, but Wesley did not fully recover his enthusiasm until he began applying the Traditions at the "I" level. He explains how common welfare means protecting his sobriety first, how unity requires accepting others as they are, how autonomy means taking responsibility for his own choices, and why self-support, primary purpose, anonymity, and service all belong in everyday recovery. With humor, history, and more than thirty years of sobriety behind him, Wesley argues that no alcoholic ever has it made, old-timers still need Twelve Step attention, and the complete AA program teaches us to live with ourselves, live with one another, and serve without expecting anything in return.

Wesley P. speaking about the Twelve Traditions in Pompano Beach, FL - 1978

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Jack stayed sober for 90 days because someone at his first AA meeting joked that he would save enough money for a good drunk, but the deeper turning point came two years later when an old-timer told him he was still only a "two-stepper."

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Jack shares a funny, blunt AA talk that begins with Tennessee homebrew, Navy court-martials, wartime drinking, a growing business, a frightened family, and Petey, the bourbon-drinking parakeet who became his unlikely drinking partner. He first entered Alcoholics Anonymous on March 17, 1957, stayed dry for 90 days through sheer willpower, and drank again on the 91st day after deciding he had proved he was not an alcoholic. When he returned to AA in March 1958, Jack threw himself into meetings and Twelve Step calls, gathering up alcoholics wherever he found them and mistaking frantic activity for the whole program. At two years sober, a hard-talking old-timer finally told him that he was working only part of Step One and part of Step Twelve. That conversation sent Jack into the Big Book, where he began confronting pride, powerlessness, self-honesty, inventory, amends, prayer, meditation, and the spiritual principles behind lasting sobriety. With humor and hard-earned clarity, he explains why the Fourth Step liberates an alcoholic from himself, why willpower disappears in alcohol, and why the essence of the AA program is ultimately love and service.

Jack H. speaking at the Saturday Night Live Friday Night Speaker Meeting - November 20th 1981

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Early in sobriety, Sarah's sponsor gave her one AA assignment: help somebody before four o'clock. When four arrived, Sarah had done nothing because service was still the most baffling idea she had ever encountered.

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Sarah speaks on "Help Others," the final part of a three-week Big Book workshop built around trusting God, cleaning house, and working with others. She explains how selfishness and self-centeredness became most visible after she stopped drinking, why love alone cannot give another alcoholic the power they need, and how sponsorship helps someone establish their own connection with a higher power. After going through the Steps in a new way with her sponsor, Sarah found people unexpectedly flooding into her life and discovered that having her own house in order gave her both the experience and language to be useful. She talks about urgency with chronic relapsers, meeting sponsees where they are, laying the spiritual toolkit at someone's feet without forcing them to pick it up, and recognizing when she is working harder than the person asking for help. Through an overflowing pot of soup, a conversation about pickles, an impromptu Step workshop in Southern Illinois, and the decision to remain with a hurting friend instead of leaving for a meeting, Sarah expands service beyond formal AA commitments into work, school, family, and every ordinary interaction. Her message is that recovery becomes attractive when the principles leave the meeting room and turn a frightened, disconnected alcoholic into someone present, compassionate, and available to others.

Sarah L. from New York, NY speaking on the topic of Help Others at the Westfield Big Book Workshop of the Spiritual Awakenings Group in Westfield, NJ - February 5th 2012

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

After seven years in and out of AA without losing the obsession, Chris tried to back out of one more meeting - until a 19-year-old member hooked a finger in his belt and said, "Sit down, cowboy."

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Chris shares a passionate and often hilarious AA talk about the difference between attending the fellowship and working the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Raised in the Texas Hill Country with an alcoholic father, he found relief in alcohol at 17 and eventually became a functioning drinker whose life kept narrowing even as he tried therapy, treatment, and years of going in and out of AA. At his darkest bottom, Chris returned to a Big Book-focused meeting but began backing toward the door before anyone could reach him. A young member stopped him with three words - "Sit down, cowboy" - and the group responded with more than slogans: they brought him back the next morning, helped him take the Third Step, started his inventory that afternoon, taught him to pray and meditate, and immediately gave him useful work. Two weeks later, sitting on the tailgate of his truck, Chris realized the obsession had lifted for the first time. He uses that experience to challenge every member to carry a clear Twelve Step message, sponsor others, give newcomers genuine responsibility, and understand that nobody in an AA room is merely there to receive help; each person may be exactly who the next alcoholic needs.

Chris R. from Ingram, TX speaking at the Thursday Night Study Group annual spaghetti dinner in Davie, FL - January 29th 2009

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Scott turns the AA inventory from a one-time Fourth Step into a daily way of life, using the Big Book to explain why an alcoholic can be completely right about a resentment and still let it take him out.

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Across this nearly five-hour, five-part AA workshop, Scott presents inventory as an ongoing spiritual process rather than a single assignment completed early in sobriety. He compares the familiar version of Chapter Five with language from the original Big Book manuscript, explains the architecture of resentment, fear, and sexual-conduct inventories, and shows how Steps Four through Nine continue through the daily practice of Step Ten. Using stories from marriage, parenting, sponsorship, grief, work, forgiveness, and his own recurring defects, Scott argues that recovery cannot stop at uncovering and understanding the problem; the inventory must lead to application, prayer, amends, changed behavior, and service to another alcoholic. His approach is specific without becoming rigid: write in whatever order makes the work possible, bring repeated problems back through the earlier Steps, and ask what action would replace the defect. The result is a detailed Big Book workshop about moving from spree and remorse into surrender and commitment, allowing inventory to become a crowbar for the problems that emerge in sobriety, and discovering that Alcoholics Anonymous can lead the sufferer into a life larger than the one alcoholism took away.

Scott R. from Van Nuys, CA speaking at the retreat "The Inventory Process: A Way of Life" at the High School of Art and Design in New York, NY - October 14th 2001

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

At seventeen years sober, Charlie thought he already knew what AA had to offer - until a nighttime plane crash and studying the Big Book line by line showed him that he had been living on one side of a three-sided program.

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Charlie, sober since March 22, 1985, delivers a funny and direct AA talk about the physical allergy, mental obsession, and spiritual condition beneath his drinking. He remembers discovering alcohol at 16, blackouts, pawn shops, courtrooms, a relapse at ten and a half months, and the promises to his father that he sincerely meant but could not keep. The deeper turn comes years later: although Charlie was surrounded by AA meetings, friendships, and service, he realized he was expecting the benefits of the entire recovery triangle while living almost entirely on its fellowship side. After surviving a nighttime plane crash, confronting the dishonesty and self-will still operating in his life, and following his sponsor into work with other alcoholics, he began studying the Big Book sentence by sentence. What he found was a program he describes as 500 feet deep - one that rekindled his sobriety, transformed sponsorship into the bright spot of his life, and showed him that a spiritual awakening remains available no matter how long someone has already been around AA.

Charlie P. from Austin, TX speaking at the North Scottsdale Group in Scottsdale, AZ - November 10th 2007

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Carla’s first real turn toward AA came when she went back to her sober neighbor instead of the store and began learning how to live with the head she had to take home.

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Carla shares with sharp humor and honesty about growing up restless and afraid, being institutionalized as a teenager, living on the road, becoming a mother, and watching alcohol defeat every attempt at a fresh start. Her first AA meeting only gave her another idea for controlling her drinking, but eighteen months later a sober neighbor arrived with a Big Book, a Twelve and Twelve, and a story Carla could recognize. After a difficult final withdrawal, Carla went to that neighbor instead of the store, found a home group, got a sponsor, worked the Steps, and felt the obsession begin to lift while making amends. She also speaks carefully about repairing her relationship with her daughter, facing a violent trauma at five years sober, finding a path toward forgiveness through page 67, rebuilding without drinking when sobriety still became difficult, and deepening her practice of prayer and meditation. This is an AA talk about showing up, allowing the awakening to continue, and discovering that the present moment might hold a possibility she once could not imagine: what if this goes well?

Carla R. from Tujunga, CA speaking at the Joy of Living Convention in Aspen, CO - October 5th 2013

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

After 55 years sober, Mel brings rare firsthand AA history, hard-earned recovery wisdom, and one of the funniest definitions of emotional sobriety you’ll ever hear.

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Mel shares his journey from a fearful childhood in Nebraska and teenage drinking through military service, jail, hospitalization, and the surrender that began his sobriety at 24. He recalls falling in love with Alcoholics Anonymous at his first meeting, learning that sobriety meant facing life rather than escaping it, and remaining close to the fellowship for more than five decades. Mel also opens an extraordinary window into early AA history, including hearing one of the co-founders speak in 1951, contributing to the manuscripts that became Pass It On, spending time at Stepping Stones, and photographing one co-founder at the other’s gravesite. With humor, humility, and stories gathered across thousands of meetings, he explains how gratitude becomes action: receive the message, live it, and pass it on. Mel closes by singing his original tribute, “Once There Were Founders.”

Mel B. from Toledo, OH speaking at the Northern Colorado Intergroup "DecaDance" in Fort Collins, CO - February 26th 2006

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

After nineteen days alone in a motel, Martin calls for AA help, accidentally reaches AAA, and realizes that tomorrow is too late—he needs the Alcoholics Anonymous solution now.

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Martin delivers a direct and urgent AA speaker talk about the difference between untreated and treated alcoholism. Although he recognized his bottom fourteen years before entering recovery, defiance, arrogance, and contempt allowed him to continue living through chaos, isolation, and loss. His final crisis comes during nineteen days alone in a motel, when he consumes enormous quantities of alcohol but discovers that it no longer provides the escape he needs. Martin mistakenly reaches AAA while attempting to call Alcoholics Anonymous, then calls back and insists that tomorrow is not soon enough. Two AA members arrive, return for four consecutive days, watch him pour away the remaining half-gallon, and become the tour guides for a journey into sobriety. Martin explains why knowledge, love, treatment, meetings, and belief cannot do the work automatically: AA has a solution, but the alcoholic must want it, work the Twelve Steps, seek spiritual power, and participate in recovery. His message is about moving from existence into life, regaining the freedom to choose, helping others, and discovering that what appeared to be his lowest point was actually the high point from which everything began to change.

Martin S. from Chicago, IL speaking at Herrington Recovery Center in Oconomowoc, WI - August 20th 2005

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

With 32 years sober, Wesley explains why AA’s Twelve Steps must become an everyday way of life—and how success, ego, and complacency can quietly lead an alcoholic back toward bondage.

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Wesley delivers a passionate and humorous Founders’ Day AA speaker talk about the difference between abstinence and genuinely living the Alcoholics Anonymous program. Sober since November 13, 1947, Wesley recalls spending his first four and a half years preaching the Steps to everyone else while continuing to lie, cheat, steal, and harm his family. A direct confrontation from his sponsor sends him back to the Twelve Steps in their numbered sequence and begins the spiritual transformation he had avoided. Wesley also describes how later success tempted him away from meetings and service, allowing self-importance to progress into complacency, apathy, and dependence on himself. Drawing from the Big Book, the Twelve Steps, the Twelve Traditions, AA history, and 32 years of experience, he explains why recovery requires continuing deflation, personal responsibility, unity, love, and service. His message is a powerful reminder that gratitude means giving something back—and that the program works in family life, business, community, and every other human relationship when its principles are practiced rather than merely discussed.

Wesley P. speaking at Founders’ Day in Akron, OH - 1979

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

After eight months of repeatedly restarting his sobriety date, Sean asks another man to sponsor him and begins following the Big Book directions that finally make AA a way of life.

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Sean shares a funny, energetic, and deeply moving AA speaker talk about underage drinking, punk-rock identity, and arriving in Alcoholics Anonymous at eighteen without understanding why he could not simply stop. For eight months, he attends meetings, marks days on a calendar, drinks again, and repeatedly starts over. The turning point comes when Sean asks another man to sponsor him and is taken through the Big Book with simple directions: where it says pray, they pray, and where it says write, they write. He describes the men who kept him company through early sobriety, the Steps that introduced him to a practical spiritual life, and the danger of drifting away after success made him believe he had outgrown the basics. Sean returns to the program through renewed Step work, sponsorship, meetings, and service, eventually discovering that there is no “advanced AA” beyond its literature and helping another alcoholic. When severe illness and loss strike his family, the fellowship he once treated as a social experiment becomes the grace that helps him remain present, useful, and sober.

Sean C. from Santa Cruz, CA speaking at the 34th Annual All California Young People in AA Round-up in Santa Clara, CA - February 25th 2006

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

After believing his life was over, Reid finds hope in Alcoholics Anonymous and discovers why working with other alcoholics is essential to his own recovery.

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Reid shares how he arrived at Alcoholics Anonymous after psychiatric hospitalization, broken relationships, and the complete loss of hope. At his first meeting, he recognizes that his real problem may finally have a solution. His sponsor immediately puts him to work helping newcomers, providing rides, studying the Big Book, and making commitments that require him to show up for others. When meetings and service positions alone no longer relieve his despair, Reid returns to the written program and begins carrying its message into a county treatment center. Through intensive work with other alcoholics, he discovers the difference between simply attending meetings and experiencing the spiritual change described in the Big Book. Reid explains why helping another alcoholic remains vital to his recovery and why every opportunity to carry the message gives him another day of life.

Reid M. from Greensboro, NC, speaking at the 32nd Annual Ventura County Convention in Ventura, CA - September 4, 2010

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

After years of anger, isolation, and drinking, David discovers that lasting recovery begins with finding peace within through the Steps, fellowship, and service.

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David shares how childhood pain and resentment left him unable to accept the love surrounding him, while alcohol offered a temporary sense of belonging and escape. As his drinking slowly damages his marriage, family, and hope for the future, he reaches a point where he can no longer continue alone. Treatment introduces him to the Twelve Steps, and the West Oak Lane Group teaches him to listen, become useful, and accept unconditional love until he can love himself. Through inventory, amends, faith, Al-Anon, and service to other alcoholics, David finds the inner peace he had searched for throughout his life. Approaching 22 years of sobriety, he celebrates the restored relationships with his wife and children and the freedom of becoming one among many in Alcoholics Anonymous.

David M. from Bear, DE, speaking at the 42nd Annual New Hampshire Convention in North Conway, NH - April 12, 2008

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

A former Broadway actor and television director explains how running out of plans opened the door to surrender—and helped him rebuild the family alcoholism had nearly destroyed.

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Scott brings humor and honesty to his story of alcoholism, surrender, and recovery. Despite professional success as an actor, director, and writer, his drinking leaves his family isolated and his wife and young sons deeply affected. After finally running out of plans, he reluctantly enters Alcoholics Anonymous and begins working the Steps with a sponsor. Through inventory, amends, service, and fellowship, Scott learns how to repair his relationships and become present for his family. With nearly 20 years of sobriety, he shares how surrendering his career expectations taught him humility, why alcoholism mainly rests in the mind, and how AA gave him a life far better than the one he had tried to design for himself.

Scott R. from Sherman Oaks, CA, speaking at the San Diego Spring Roundup in San Diego, CA - March 25, 2005

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

One of AA’s original members recalls how a living example showed him the difference between being forced to stop drinking and finally learning how to stop taking the first drink.

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Jeff shares a remarkable firsthand account of alcoholism and the earliest years of Alcoholics Anonymous. His drinking repeatedly carries him from his Brooklyn home into courtrooms, missions, psychiatric wards, and life on the street until a coworker finds him outside a flophouse, takes him home, bathes and shaves him, and introduces him to a small gathering of men demonstrating a new way of life. Jeff realizes that hospitals had taught him plenty about stopping temporarily; what he desperately needed was a way to stop starting again. He recalls learning early Twelve Step work through experience, the flood of requests for help following the Saturday Evening Post article, and how even an apparently unsuccessful call could plant a seed that later transformed an alcoholic’s life. With humor, humility, and more than 27 years of sobriety, Jeff contrasts the lonely man once talking to himself in a Brooklyn gutter with the husband, father, grandfather, and respected member he became through AA, faith, fellowship, and carrying the message.

Jeff W. from Los Angeles, CA, one of the original 100 AAs, speaking in Sacramento, CA - 1965

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

In this Big Book workshop on AA Steps 10, 11, and 12, Peter explains how inventory, prayer, meditation, and intensive work with other alcoholics replace the noise of self with spiritual freedom.

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Peter presents a deeply spiritual and practical Big Book workshop on Steps 10, 11, and 12 of Alcoholics Anonymous. He describes Step 10 as a continuing way of life built around immediate inventory, prayer, honest discussion, amends, and movement toward helping someone else. In Step 11, Peter explores meditation, breath, posture, daily review, and the silence that remains beneath internal dialogue and external noise. Step 12 turns that spiritual experience outward through intensive work with other alcoholics, clear sponsorship, service, and carrying the common solution. Peter shares personal examples of resentment being removed, learning to forgive, moving beyond fear, and discovering that recovery is not about acquiring more knowledge or constructing a better identity. It is a process of subtraction—less ego, less attachment, and less self—so that a recovered alcoholic can live presently, experience God, and help another person awaken.

Peter M. from Union, NJ speaking about Steps 10, 11, and 12 at the Spiritual Awakenings Group in Bernardsville, NJ - August 8th 2006

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

After getting sober at sixteen and reading thousands of Big Book pages in treatment, KC discovers why information alone could not relieve the obsession—and what changed when a sponsor finally walked her through the Twelve Steps.

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KC delivers a funny, passionate, and sharply focused AA speaker talk about developing alcoholism as a teenager, reaching the point where she asks her mother to install an alarm on the windows, and entering long-term residential treatment at sixteen. Although she completes packets, attends meetings, studies recovery concepts, and reads an accumulated 5,200 pages of the Big Book, KC remains frightened by how badly she still wants to drink. After leaving treatment, she finds a sponsor who explains the physical allergy and mental obsession in language that finally matches KC’s experience. The Big Book changes from something she can quote into a set of directions she can follow. KC describes moving rapidly through inventory, confession, amends, daily spiritual practice, and work with other alcoholics, while explaining why the common solution matters more than personal opinions in AA meetings. Her story is a powerful message about young sobriety, sponsorship, the Twelve Steps, service, and the difference between knowing recovery language and experiencing genuine freedom.

KC R. from Dallas, TX speaking at the North Eastern Conference of Young People in AA in Nashua, NH - December 30th 2007

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

After seven years in and out of AA, Chris learns that attending meetings is not the same as working the Big Book, taking the Steps, and serving other alcoholics.

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Chris delivers a passionate and often hilarious Big Book-centered AA speaker talk about the difference between attending Alcoholics Anonymous and actively participating in its program of recovery. For seven years, he moves in and out of meetings without owning a Big Book, finding a sponsor, working the Steps, or accepting a service commitment. As his alcoholism progresses into isolation, financial chaos, depression, and a life-threatening crisis, Chris hears a voice telling him to return to AA. At a meeting filled with people carrying Big Books, members share the miracles produced by recovery instead of trying to frighten him with more war stories. They ask whether he is truly finished, guide him rapidly into the Steps, and immediately give him ways to contribute. Two weeks later, sitting on the tailgate of his truck beneath a full moon, Chris realizes that the obsession to drink and use has been removed. His message challenges members to offer newcomers a vision, carry the solution clearly, participate in service, and help other alcoholics find the spiritual experience promised in the Big Book.

Chris R. from Ingram, TX speaking at the Sacramento Spring Fling in Sacramento, CA - February 24th 2006

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

After losing an entrusted diamond watch during a blackout, Stan walks into his first AA meeting expecting lunch—and discovers the fellowship, sponsorship, and Steps that change his life.

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Stan shares a candid and deeply personal AA speaker talk about growing up feeling different, searching for belonging through relationships and achievement, and watching alcohol gradually take control of his life. While building a successful career in luxury jewelry, his drinking progresses into nightly intoxication, blackouts, injuries, withdrawal, and a final weekend when an expensive diamond watch entrusted to him disappears. That loss forces Stan to recognize his alcoholism and make the phone call that brings him to his first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting—although he initially believes he is simply going to lunch. He describes receiving his first desire chip, finding the sponsor who guided him through the Steps, surviving grief and major career changes without drinking, and reaching ten years sober only to realize he needed to begin again. Stan’s story is a powerful message about belonging, humility, sponsorship, service, and why long-term sobriety still requires daily action.

Stan G. from Houston, TX speaking at Houston Roundup in Houston, TX - November 23rd 2000

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

A veteran AA speaker shares how one desperate morning beneath the U.S. Capitol led him from broken promises and financial chaos into sponsorship, the Steps, service, and a life he genuinely wanted sober.

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Ernie delivers a warm and hilarious AA speaker talk about the respectable professional life he used to prove that he could not possibly be an alcoholic. Behind that appearance were repeated arrests, all-night drinking, punishing hangovers, broken promises, overwhelming debt, and a family preparing to leave. After a bleak morning beneath the U.S. Capitol, a chance conversation with another alcoholic brings Ernie to an AA luncheon, his first meeting, and a demanding sponsor who teaches him to follow directions. Ernie also explains how rapid material success allowed him to run past the Steps—and why pain eventually brought him back to the daily spiritual work of the program. His message is filled with Big Book wisdom, AA history, sponsorship, humor, service, and gratitude for the fellowship that taught him he was worth getting sober.

Ernie R. from Potomac, MD speaking at the Sandlapper Roundup VII in Myrtle Beach, SC - December 1998

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Lindsey and Nate each came into AA trying to look cool and remain in control; recovery began when they became vulnerable enough to admit they were falling apart and ask another alcoholic for help.

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Lindsey and Nate share two candid Alcoholics Anonymous stories about pride, powerlessness, vulnerability, and the spiritual solution they found through the Twelve Steps. Lindsey was introduced to AA at 16 but remained convinced that she was different, eventually reaching an emotional bottom after blackouts, destructive behavior, broken relationships, and repeated attempts to control her drinking. A call to the woman she least wanted to contact opened the first small door to hope, and a sponsor helped her examine the fear, selfishness, secrets, and need for control beneath her alcoholism. Nate describes using alcohol, drugs, relationships, and excitement to escape the discomfort of being human until withdrawal, homelessness, detox, and isolation left him unable to continue. Even after entering AA, he tried meetings without honestly working the program and blamed the fellowship when his life failed to improve. Both found relief when they stopped pretending to have everything together, accepted guidance, worked through the Big Book, and became accountable for the harm they caused. Together, their stories show how honesty replaces delusion, vulnerability breaks through pride, and God becomes real through love, repaired relationships, sponsorship, and helping another person.

Lindsey F. from Portland, ME and Nate F. from Portland, ME speaking at the Portland Harbor Group in Portland, ME - November 28th 2012 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Don’s family once took him to the edge of the reservation and told him never to return; years later, Alcoholics Anonymous said “keep coming back,” and he knew he had found his tribe.

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Don, a member of the Mohican Nation and sober since August 10, 1978, uses the story of a boxing match to describe his long contest with alcohol. Every round brought more pain, his family eventually left the arena, and each attempt to return with a new strategy ended with alcohol putting him back on his knees. At his first AA meeting, Don found himself surrounded by white people who openly admitted their weaknesses and laughed about their lives, two things he could not understand. Still, he felt a connection that made him return. A demanding sponsor used Don’s anger to break through his resistance, introduced him to the first 164 pages of the Big Book, and offered to remain his friend whether Don liked him or not. Through the Twelve Steps, Don confronted childhood trauma, disclosed the secrets that had controlled his relationships, learned the difference between apology and forgiveness, and began repairing the harm he caused. A later sponsor helped him place the Steps within the four directions, reconnecting Alcoholics Anonymous with the Native spirituality and culture he had lost. After 32 passes through the Steps, Don describes a sober family, grandchildren growing up outside the cycle of addiction, and a fellowship that welcomed him home when he believed he no longer belonged anywhere.

Don C. from Colorado Springs, CO speaking at the 53rd ICYPAA in San Francisco, CA - September 3rd 2011 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

At ten months sober, Liz hated AA meetings, hated the happy people in them, and was close to giving up; then the woman she couldn’t stand became the sponsor who led her through the Big Book and Twelve Steps.

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Liz, sober since July 20, 1993, shares how a painfully shy and self-conscious child discovered at 13 that alcohol could immediately provide the ease and confidence she could not find on her own. What began with a few beers grew into drugs, legal trouble, repeated DUIs, unstable living, broken promises, and a pattern of changing jobs before her drinking could catch up with her. At her final law firm, Liz entered a conference room expecting to help select a copy machine and instead found the partners and an intervention professional waiting for her. Treatment removed the alcohol, but after ten months of meetings without working the program, her mind still felt like silverware spinning in a blender and she could no longer keep living that way. The woman whose honesty made Liz uncomfortable became her sponsor, led her into the Big Book, and took her through the Twelve Steps. Through inventory, confession, amends, daily maintenance, prayer, sponsorship, and service, Liz discovered the peace that abstinence alone had never produced. Fourteen years later, she describes a life of marriage, motherhood, restored family relationships, freedom from other compulsions, and continued dependence on the actions that keep her connected to God and recovery.

Liz Y. from Atlanta, GA speaking at the New Year’s Eve party at the Northside Alcoholics Benevolent Association - December 31st 2007 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

In this AA workshop, Frank says bottom is not a jail cell, divorce court, treatment center, or empty bank account - it is the moment an alcoholic realizes, “I can’t live drinking, and I can’t live not drinking.”

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Frank, nearly 18 years sober, brings courtroom energy, blunt humor, and years of beginners-meeting experience to this two-part workshop on spirituality through the Twelve Steps. He challenges the idea that the purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous is merely to stop drinking, arguing that fellowship, meetings, slogans, and sober time can support recovery but cannot replace the actions in the Big Book. Through his imaginary test-tube exercise, Frank shows how alcohol initially appeared to dilute fear, shame, anger, loneliness, and the feeling of never being enough, before eventually intensifying everything it once seemed to relieve. From there, he describes bottom as a feeling rather than a location, explains why willingness must precede surrender, and presents the first three Steps as simple movements from honest recognition to accepting help. Frank also shares how outward success concealed family damage, secrets, and a deeply punitive idea of God, and how belief gradually moved from the AA group to a sponsor and finally toward a loving Higher Power. His central message is that whether someone has avoided the Steps for three days or 30 years, the grace to begin remains available.

Frank M. speaking on “Spirituality Through the Steps” at the Cajun Conference in Lafayette, LA - 1989 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Billy was told at 17 that he might be too cool to get sober; AA eventually carried him through jail and homelessness into Big Book service, family repair, and a life his mother could finally discuss with pride.

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Billy, sober since January 5, 1990, grew up in a large Irish Catholic family where alcoholism, fear, and keeping up appearances were woven into ordinary life. His first serious drunk at 13 made him feel comfortable in his own skin, beginning years of violent drinking, repeated visits to Alcoholics Anonymous, legal consequences, a fatal impaired-driving crash, incarceration, and homelessness. Billy describes being the teenager who was too cool for AA, learning recovery language without taking the actions, and nearly walking away after hearing that sobriety earned in jail did not count. A speaker tape inside the correctional facility gave him enough hope to continue. Still an atheist or agnostic during his first five years sober, Billy gradually found a life in the Big Book, the Twelve Steps, corrections work, young people’s AA, and general service. He explains that recovery required more than learning a new way to live - it required unlearning nearly everything he had been taught about manhood, prejudice, pride, and asking for help. Ultimately, it was not the consequences that kept him sober, but the good life that returned a little at a time and allowed his family to heal.

Billy N. from Spring Lake Heights, NJ speaking at the 70th "Old Grandad" Conference in Hot Springs, AR - August 20th 2010 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Norma says God wrote Himself into her AA story, turning three years of abstinence without the Steps into a life of surrender, service, and faith strong enough to meet devastating grief.

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Norma, 24 years sober, shares how growing up with an alcoholic mother and a rage-filled father carried fear, loneliness, and despair into her adult life. A sober woman she met in a bar led her to Alcoholics Anonymous, but after three years of meetings without a sponsor, the Steps, or a spiritual foundation, Norma discovered that she had found relief rather than recovery. Following a relapse and an abusive marriage, she left with her baby and began rebuilding her life while moving from couch to couch, doing odd jobs, and trusting that the next right action would be enough for that day. The years that followed brought a loving marriage, family addiction, incarceration, her son’s serious head injury and time in foster care, painful estrangement, and repeated lessons in letting go. Speaking only days after the sudden death of her stepson, Norma describes how prayer, service, the Twelve Steps, and the arms of the AA fellowship carried her through circumstances she could never control. This is a moving talk about the difference between abstinence and recovery, surrender without resignation, and finding purpose, power, and peace even when life does not turn out as hoped.

Norma A. from Austin, TX speaking at the monthly Austin Citywide AA group in Austin, TX - September 22nd 2007 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Lyle’s last drunk became national news, but the more remarkable AA story is what followed: treatment, federal prison, a repaired family, and an impossible return to the cockpit.

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Lyle grew up Irish and Comanche in an alcoholic home, determined never to become like his parents. He built a distinguished career as a Marine Corps aviator and airline captain, but in March 1990 an alcohol-related flight ended with his arrest, national headlines, termination, revoked licenses, a federal conviction, and 424 days in prison. Treatment also forced Lyle to confront the pain hidden beneath years of anger, especially the rage that had separated him from his daughter and son. Through honesty, willingness, reconciliation, and the practical discipline of Alcoholics Anonymous, he began putting his family back together before facing prison one day at a time. After his release, Lyle started with a private pilot’s license and rebuilt every qualification from the ground up. He was eventually reinstated with full seniority, completed his career as a Boeing 747 captain, received a presidential pardon, and learned that his recovery story had been selected for the Big Book. This is an exceptional AA talk about accountability, acceptance, and watching the impossible become possible one step at a time.

At his first AA meeting, Michael looked past seven older men in polyester plaid pants and recognized in their eyes the peace he had last known as a five-year-old sitting in the high grass of the Andes.

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Michael shares a funny, thoughtful Alcoholics Anonymous story about growing up gay in a loving and privileged family, spending his childhood in the Peruvian Andes, and becoming a periodic blackout drinker whose life narrowed into violence, loneliness, frightening situations, and serious mental health crises. He arrived at AA intending to get out of trouble rather than stop drinking, immediately judged the seven older men in the room, and then realized he was the most prejudiced person there. What kept him coming back was the unmistakable peace in their eyes. Michael describes the difference between reading about life and living it, memorizing the Twelve Steps and finally taking them, and gradually learning that prayer could mean putting his beliefs into action. With 21 years of sobriety, a writing career, enduring relationships, a young daughter, service in Madison’s AIDS community, and a fellowship that helped him face profound grief, Michael shows how AA returned him to humor, love, usefulness, and the feeling that he belonged.

Dave returned to Alcoholics Anonymous at 22 from a hospital bed, unable to move and given little hope, then used the same AA actions that kept him sober to return to college and earn a Ph.D. in engineering.

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Speaking with nearly 15 years sober, Dave uses the Big Book chapter “A Vision for You” to explain why hope without action remained only a delusion in his life. He first entered Alcoholics Anonymous at 19, looked around at members decades older than him, and could not imagine what their fellowship could offer a young man who still wanted bright lights and fast times. Three years of painful returns followed, including a relapse in Tijuana after completing only the first three Steps. Back in Maryland, Dave quickly returned to wrecked cars, jail, violent encounters, and the hospital injury that left him unable to move and uncertain whether he would survive. A sponsor carried AA to his bedside, took him through the Big Book and all Twelve Steps, and gave him a new foundation of action, commitment, fellowship, and reliance on God. When Dave regained his physical abilities, that same sponsor told him to return to college and apply the AA approach: arrive early, stay late, sit in front, ask for help, find the winners, and trust God. Dave eventually became the outstanding graduate in his department and continued through a master’s degree and Ph.D. in engineering. He also describes lifelong amends to the grandfather who raised him, learning about the father he lost in Vietnam, helping his mother and his father’s fellow servicemen heal, and becoming the husband and father he once dreamed of being. Dave’s vision of recovery is ultimately larger than education or outward success; it is the character built through consistent action and the willingness to stand near the door so the next suffering alcoholic can find the way inside.

Dave D. from Severna Park, MD speaking at Acts of Recovery in Newark, DE - April 9th 2005 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

At 19 years sober, Mary realized she knew the Big Book well enough to keep everyone away from her, and AA asked her to trade a God of reason for a God she could trust as a friend.

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Mary, 34 years sober, traces her Alcoholics Anonymous story from a proper but emotionally distant New England upbringing through boarding school drinking, an abusive marriage, blackouts, single motherhood, and a move to Southern California intended to outrun her reputation. Her daughter’s babysitter lived with a woman in AA who quietly watched Mary’s drinking progress for a year and a half before inviting her to an open meeting. There, an old-timer’s story broke through Mary’s defenses, a hug and the words “welcome home” gave her permission to feel, and 17 yes answers on the 20 questions finally allowed her to recognize her alcoholism. Early recovery brought difficult withdrawal, constant meetings, Big Book study, sponsorship, and a woman who called herself Mary’s temporary sponsor for the next 25 years. After moving back to Maine with five years sober, Mary started a Big Book meeting and became deeply knowledgeable about the program, but eventually discovered that knowledge itself had become another barrier. At 18 or 19 years sober, she was more frightened than when she arrived because she could quote the book while keeping people at a distance. Mary describes how teachability, inventory, service, grief work, and an evolving relationship with God changed her recovery again. Her message is not that long-term sobriety prevents trials; it is that a growing spiritual life allows an alcoholic to meet those trials with honesty, trust, courage, humility, and enough reliance on God to match calamity with serenity.

Mary T. from Santa Fe, NM speaking at The 42nd Annual New Hampshire Convention in North Conway, NH - April 12th 2008 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Rick reached Alcoholics Anonymous from a cable-equipped tent beside the Russian River, where even the town drunks had begun looking at him with pity, and discovered that losing the war was how he finally got his life back.

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Rick grew up on a small farm in Fortuna, California, surrounded by drinking, family conflict, tremendous freedom, and a determination to grow up and escape as quickly as possible. Drinking and using gradually carried him through school trouble, bartending in the Russian River area, damaged relationships, police encounters, repeated upheaval, and a life in which cars, jobs, homes, and partners disappeared in a familiar cycle. By 1994, he was living in an elaborate tent at Johnson’s Beach with cable television, trying to maintain a job while even the local drinkers began regarding him with pity. A simple observation from someone close to him finally reached a place that years of warnings could not, and Rick asked to attend an AA meeting that night. Treatment counselors told his group of 18 that perhaps one person would make it, so Rick committed himself to meetings, service, sponsorship, fellowship, and a slow paragraph-by-paragraph study of the Big Book. The Steps helped him clean up old harm, reconnect with his family, build a loving long-term partnership, and exchange bitterness for a life he genuinely enjoys. Rick is equally honest that sobriety does not make every day inspirational or his behavior perfect; sometimes the spiritual victory is recognizing a broken filter, making the correction, and remembering that Alcoholics Anonymous asks for progress while insisting that life should still be enjoyed.

Rick M. from Santa Rosa, CA speaking at River City Roundup - November 10th 2002 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu