Sober Sunrise - AA Speaker Podcast

Where There’s Love, There’s Service - AA Speaker - Tom F.

Tom says AA service gets dangerous when alcoholics trade the fire line for paperwork and forget the one job that saves lives. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive More AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch Shirts, mugs, and recovery-inspired gear: https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter Weekly AA speaker picks, recovery reflections, and updates: https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter Tom takes on the topic of love and service with the kind of blunt AA humor that makes the room laugh before the point lands. He argues that Alcoholics Anonymous has one primary service: one alcoholic working with another alcoholic so the newcomer can become willing to take the steps. From weak sponsorship and dull service meetings to gratitude without action and love that requires showing up when it costs something, Tom keeps dragging the talk back to the trenches. His message is simple: service is not status, busyness, or committee language. It is carrying the message, helping the lost person after the meeting, and staying close enough to the newcomer to remember what AA is for. Tom F. from Glenn Bernie, MA speaking on the topic of "Love and Service" Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

I Was Stupid Enough to Follow the Instructions - AA Speaker - Ray M.

Ray came in young, separate, and sure he was smarter than the room, then found out AA worked best when he was finally willing to follow directions. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive More AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch Shirts, mugs, and recovery-inspired gear: https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter Weekly AA speaker picks, recovery reflections, and updates: https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter Ray starts with a New Year’s resolution to try sobriety for one year, then admits he was amazed when he made it through the first day. Growing up around alcoholism, feeling apart from other people, dropping out young, and trying to escape through the same old patterns, he landed in AA unsure whether he belonged with the “real pros.” What changed was simple and uncomfortable: an old-timer helped him identify, a sponsor pushed him through the steps, he got on his knees without knowing what he believed, and service gave him a way to fit in. Years later, Ray is honest about slipping away from the basics and trying to return to the book, prayer, inventory, sponsorship, and the kind of 12-step work that keeps the program alive. Ray M. speaking at the regular weekly speaker meeting in Bryan, TX - 2007 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

The Age of Miracles Is Still With Us - AA Speaker - Dick A.

Dick spent his life looking for the power he thought everyone else had, until a broken bottle, a phone booth, and Alcoholics Anonymous showed him where that power actually lived. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive More AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes [https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes] 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch Shirts, mugs, and recovery-inspired gear: https://sober-sunrise.com/merch [https://sober-sunrise.com/merch] 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter Weekly AA speaker picks, recovery reflections, and updates: https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter [https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter] Dick A. shares a thoughtful, funny, and deeply spiritual AA story about growing up in an honorable military family while feeling like he never fit, confusing the power he was looking for with alcohol from his first drink, and spending years in defiance, arrests, Vietnam, advertising success, job losses, isolation, and spiritual anger until a broken bottle and a desperate call from a phone booth brought him into Alcoholics Anonymous. Through sponsorship, service, home group commitments, the Steps, the Traditions, amends, learning to forgive God, and later walking through cancer with the help of AA members, Dick describes a life transformed from trying to get something for himself into being useful to others, and the miracle of discovering connection with God and people in the fellowship. Dick A. from Lithia Springs, GA speaking at the XXXIX Gopher State roundup in Bloomington, MN - May 25th 2012 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

My Dark Past Became My Greatest Possession - AA Speaker - Mark B.

Mark spent years blaming war, prison, violence, and fear for the way he drank, until alcohol stopped working and AA showed him the problem had been deeper all along. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive More AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes [https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes] 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch Shirts, mugs, and recovery-inspired gear: https://sober-sunrise.com/merch [https://sober-sunrise.com/merch] 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter Weekly AA speaker picks, recovery reflections, and updates: https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter [https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter] Mark B. shares a raw, funny, and deeply spiritual AA story about growing up in Quincy, Massachusetts, finding relief in his first drink at 14, carrying fear through Vietnam, psychiatric hospitals, jails, prisons, homelessness, and years of trying to survive with alcohol, pills, and anything else that would quiet him. After a year and a half of sitting in AA meetings while still medicated and terrified, Mark finally heard his own fear and loneliness in another speaker, got on his knees, found a sponsor, took the actions in the Big Book, and discovered a life built on sponsorship, corrections work, service, and the truth that Alcoholics Anonymous is not an intellectual exercise but a spiritual journey. Mark B. from Navarre, FL speaking at the 49th Florida State Conference at the Wyndham Palace Resort in Orlando, FL - August 2005 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

I Was in Prison Before I Ever Got to Prison - AA Speaker - Wallace B.

Wallace was in prison before he ever got to prison, and AA was where he finally learned the difference between being locked up and being free. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive More AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes [https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes] 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch Shirts, mugs, and recovery-inspired gear: https://sober-sunrise.com/merch [https://sober-sunrise.com/merch] 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter Weekly AA speaker picks, recovery reflections, and updates: https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter [https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter] Wallace B. tells the story of growing up poor in North Carolina, feeling restless and apart from everyone around him, and discovering in his first drink the confidence and ease he had never known. What began as relief quickly became blackouts, arrests, lost jobs, broken marriages, violence, and finally a sentence of natural life plus 40 years in the North Carolina prison system. Inside prison, Wallace found that being physically locked up did not automatically make him sober, and after a desperate night brought him back to Alcoholics Anonymous with real willingness, he began to recover through the Big Book, sponsorship, Step Five, service, and carrying the message into correctional institutions. Wallace B. from Sanford, NC speaking at the 49th Florida State Conference at the Wyndham Palace Resort in Orlando, FL - August 2005 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu