I Wanted to Be Ordinary - AA Speaker - David B.

It Was Never the Lack of What I Am- AA Speaker - John V.

John spent years believing he was unwanted because he was Indigenous, uneducated, poor, and unable to speak the way other people did. AA taught him that none of those things had robbed him of life nearly as much as refusing to accept himself. ☀️ 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 John shares how he arrived at his first AA meeting at 28 after seven years on Skid Row, unable to read or write, living in a mission, and interested mainly in the free coffee and donuts. A lawyer greeted him at the door, introduced him to people who treated him with care, and gave John his first experience of belonging sober. Although the desire to drink disappeared, loneliness, fear, and isolation returned after several years because he still had no program for living. A Step meeting and an unlikely friendship with a priest challenged John to become teachable, stop blaming his identity and circumstances, and begin where he was with what he had. From one underpriced house-painting job came a room of his own, a ladder, a business, a driver’s license, an 11-passenger station wagon, a wife, six children, and a life spent helping others. John’s message is not that AA turned him into somebody else, but that honesty, faith, and the Steps finally taught him to stop fighting the person he had always been. John  V. from Berlin, MA speaking at the 1st Atlantic Summer Roundup in Moncton, NB - June 23rd 1989 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

God Is Whatever Got You to Those People - AA Speaker - Karl M.

Karl called his father, a minister and theologian, expecting him to explain God. His father gave him a much shorter answer: God is whatever got you to those people, so do what they say. ☀️ 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 Karl, sober since January 21, 1987, shares a rapid-fire AA talk about growing up in Borneo, blacking out from his first drink at 11, earning ten college credits in three years, dealing drugs, living on the streets, and joining the Navy to escape people he owed. His drinking followed him into military life, where he drove through a guard shack, repeatedly drank on Antabuse, landed in jail, and was finally sent to treatment under threat of the brig and a bad-conduct discharge. At his first AA meeting, one sentence described the condition he could never explain: his mind would have killed his body, but it needed it for transportation. What followed was a weekend of meetings, a recovering alcoholic waiting for him aboard his ship, nightly Big Book study in the battery shop, inventory, difficult financial amends, an honorable discharge, and a return to college. Karl explains how meetings, the book, and service became recovery, unity, and service in action, and how loading newcomers into a broken Volkswagen taught him that helping someone else could improve his life before the car even left the parking lot. Karl M. from Covina, CA speaking somewhere in Texas, sometime in 1994 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

I Went to One Meeting Too Many - AA Speaker - Paul O.

Paul went to AA for seven months with no intention of becoming an alcoholic. Then he attended one meeting too many, caught himself laughing with everyone else, and never drank again ☀️ 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 Paul, sober since July 31, 1967, shares a wonderfully funny AA talk about being a doctor who could diagnose everyone except himself. After weight loss, convulsions, headaches, and a growing sense of insanity convinced him that he had a brain tumor, alcoholism landed him in the psychiatric ward of the hospital where he practiced medicine. He first attended AA to satisfy his psychiatrist, kept returning because his wife enjoyed the meetings, and finally discovered that the laughter, Steps, meetings, and fellowship were reaching him despite everything he thought he knew. Paul talks about the noisy committee in his head, giving God a 51 percent controlling interest in his life, assigning God the worry while he handles the work, redoing the Steps, carrying the message, and learning that sobriety requires both meetings and action. At the heart of the talk is the point of the V: accepting that he was alcoholic changed the entire direction of his life, because acceptance did not mean approval. It meant facing reality and finally having a choice. Paul O. from Laguna Beach, CA at 19th Everett Conference - November 28th 1997 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

The Second Half of Step One - AA Speaker - Michael M.

Michael knew he was alcoholic for twelve years before AA, but the part that changed his life was learning what came after putting the drink down. ☀️ 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 Michael, from Montana, shares a direct and thoughtful AA talk centered on Step One, especially the unmanageability that remained after alcohol was removed. He talks about years of drinking Granddad in private, blackouts, hiding car keys from himself, waking up afraid of what he might have done, time behind bars, wrecked cars, hospitalizations, and the slow degradation that made him believe he did not deserve to sober up. After court, treatment, relapses, early sponsorship choices, and the death of a friend, Michael describes the moment he got on his knees with other sober men and finally asked for the compulsion to be removed. From there, he walks through why every Step after Step One deals with the same deeper problem: resentments, fear, selfishness, sexual behavior, sponsorship, amends, and becoming a builder instead of a destroyer. This is a strong tape for anyone who has heard “I’m powerless” but still wonders what AA means by “my life had become unmanageable.” Michael McK. from Whitefish, MT at Kalispell, MT May 17th 1998 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Joe & Charlie AA Speakers - Part 5 - More About Alcoholism - AA Big Book Workshop

In Part 5 of the Joe & Charlie Founders' Day series, Joe and Charlie dig into the strange mental blank spot that makes the first drink possible again. ☀️ 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 In this session, Joe and Charlie walk through More About Alcoholism and the Big Book's deeper explanation of the mental side of the disease. They break down the obsession that says someday we will control and enjoy drinking, the illusion and delusion that return after consequences, and why knowledge alone does not protect the alcoholic from another first drink. Using the Big Book examples of the man of thirty, the jaywalker, and Fred, they show how the alcoholic can be sane in every other area and still have no effective mental defense when the thought of a drink returns. Part 5 sharpens Step One by showing that the problem is not only what happens after drinking starts, but the mind that keeps taking us back to the first drink Joe & Charlie speaking in Laughlin, Nevada, circa 1998 - "The Big Book Comes Alive" workshop tapes - Part 5: "More About Alcoholism" Music: Deep by KaizanBlu