Sober Sunrise - AA Speaker Podcast

From 56 Pages of Chaos to a Life Beyond Her Wildest Dreams - AA Speaker - Patti O.

She blacked out her past, faked her own death to escape charges, and faced 10 years in prison—yet what finally broke her wasn’t jail… it was the unbearable pain of not drinking and not recovering.
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Pattie’s story is a powerful testament to how far a person can fall—and how profoundly they can rise when they surrender; from a blackout drinker who consumed anything containing alcohol, lived in chaos, and rationalized her way through arrests, violence, and broken relationships, she transformed into a woman of deep honesty, service, and spiritual grounding through the 12 Steps, proving that true recovery isn’t about becoming perfect but becoming real, learning to act her way into right thinking, and allowing others to walk with her through fear and pain; her greatest accomplishment isn’t just decades of sobriety since October 4, 1975, but the life rebuilt through those principles—including raising a son who found his own recovery and giving her the ultimate gift of becoming a grandmother—showing that what once felt like life falling apart was actually life falling into place.Patti O. from Laguna Niguel, CA speaking at the 46th Tri-State Convention in Mt. Vernon, IL - November 4th 2006Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 
 

From Waking Up in Random Cities to Never Wanting a Drink Again - AA Speaker - Chris B.

He wasn’t a failure—he was successful, respected, and “smart”… until alcohol slowly took everything, leaving him homeless, hopeless, and completely powerless over a mind that kept telling him he’d be fine.
We just launched our new Episodes page — search hundreds of AA speaker meetings by topic, speaker, or step ☀️  Sober Sunrise Episode Archive
Chris B delivers a deeply impactful breakdown of the first three steps by sharing how his life spiraled from a promising Wall Street career into blackout drinking, crime, and complete personal collapse, ultimately revealing that alcoholism isn’t just about drinking but a deadly combination of a physical craving and a mental obsession that removes choice entirely; through surrendering his ego, abandoning self-reliance, and learning to trust a Higher Power in action—not theory—he found lasting sobriety and purpose, emphasizing that true recovery comes not from thinking or talking about the steps but living them, and that the greatest transformation in his life has been moving from self-centered survival to helping others, which he identifies as the real key to freedom, fulfillment, and a life worth living.Chris B. from Riverton, NJ speaking on the topic of "Trust God" at the Sea Isle Big Book workshop in Sea Isle, NJ - September 25th 2011Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

I Had Ten Meetings a Week and Was Completely Hollow Inside - AA Speaker - Mike L.

Mike was five years sober, going to 10 meetings a week, and completely hollow inside — until the man he disliked most in AA told him he'd missed the entire recovery program.
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Mike did Alcoholics Anonymous the way he did college — signed up for everything, bought the books, threw them in the closet, and started partying. Five years sober, he had the meetings, the service, the sponsees, and was dying of untreated alcoholism in a room full of people who looked happy. The man he disliked most in AA told him something that cracked everything open: sobriety isn't your solution, it's your problem. You've been sober thousands of times — you can't stand life sober. A sponsor named Don told him to pray "God, please teach me about love" and Mike called back two weeks later furious because the only woman he liked had left town and his blood pressure meds made him impotent. Don said the prayer wasn't "God get me a woman." Over the years that prayer unfolded into falling in love with his son, restoring friendship with his ex-wife, and finding Linda — a woman who wrote out the primary purpose for their relationship including the clarity of the diamond. When she died of a stroke, he thought the prayer was over. Then he discovered the next lesson was letting the people of AA love him back.Mike L. from Indianapolis, IN speaking about steps 10 & 11 at the Stateline Retreat in Primm, NV - December 12th-14th 2008Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

I Said I'm Fine for 40 Years and Never Meant It Once - AA Speaker - David L.

David spent every Saturday planning how to drown himself and 22 years smiling and saying "I'm fine" — until a sponsor gave him two lines to say to his son and everything cracked open.
We just launched our new Episodes page — search hundreds of AA speaker meetings by topic, speaker, or step ☀️  Sober-Sunrise.com
David shares a clear and deeply relatable story about living most of his life believing he simply wasn’t good enough, constantly trying to fix himself by changing external circumstances while never understanding the role alcohol played in his thinking and behavior. For over forty years, he cycled through jobs, relationships, and self-improvement attempts, convinced that if he could just try harder or be different, everything would finally fall into place. It wasn’t until entering treatment and being introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous that he first encountered the idea that alcoholism is a disease rather than a personal failure, a shift that changed everything. Through the Twelve Steps, David began to understand that relief didn’t come from fixing himself, but from accepting his condition, surrendering his own solutions, and learning a new way to live rooted in honesty, humility, and connection with others in recovery.David L. from Holly Springs, NC speaking at the 28th Gopher State Roundup - May 25th-27th 2001Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

My Brain Was the Problem, Not Just the Drinking - AA Speaker - Peter M.

Peter went through seven treatment centers, got drunk two days after the fifth one, and was dying in a hallway on the Lower East Side before he found a sponsor who disturbed him on the question of alcoholism and handed him the book.
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Peter is not here to make you comfortable. He went through seven treatment centers and got drunk two days after spending nine weeks in the fifth one. His family thought he was beyond help. He made a plea to God in a filthy hallway on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and got put on a path he's walked for over 18 years since. This is a teaching talk — Peter walks through steps one through seven with the precision of someone who's reworked them many times and believes contemporary AA is handing newcomers a death sentence with "don't drink and go to meetings." He breaks down why the problem is in the mind but the solution isn't, why the fourth step inventory is perfect when you let God write it, and why "Father save me from me" became the truest prayer he's ever said. He's the speaker for the person who's done everything AA told them to do and still can't figure things out. Peter M. from Union, NJ speaking at the Primary Purpose Group in Lynbrook, NY - August 3rd 2006Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

I Put Beepers on My Beer Because I Kept Losing It - AA Speaker - Tami F.

Tami went to treatment to quit drugs but told her husband she'd leave the car at 65 mph if he suggested she quit drinking — then a tin cross, Psalm 23, and Board 23 started connecting dots she couldn't explain.
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Tami chased a euphoric feeling from her first sip of Purple Passion at 12 and spent the next two decades building a life that looked fine from the outside — husband, four kids, ten years at Ford — while the drinking came first every single time. She put beepers on her beer because she kept losing it, sought out what she thought was cocaine at 36 with two babies at home, and developed drug-induced schizophrenia taking pictures of electricity in her attic. Her sister had a church praying for her. At Valley Hope she lied her way to a tin cross, then felt a pang of guilt that wouldn't leave — so she went back to chapel for real and heard Psalm 23 for the first time. She was in Room 23. Months later she threw a vial of dust into the river from Board 23. A year after that she heard Deuteronomy 9:21 — "I crushed it into a powder as fine as dust and threw it in the stream" — and pulled her van over sobbing. Today the pink cloud hasn't left and her little girl thinks the Lord's Prayer starts with "Our Father who draws in heaven."
Tami F. from Olathe, KS speaking at NE Johnson County group in Overland Park, KS - July 9th 2010
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 
 
 

Save Me a Seat Were the Last Words I Said to My Sponsor - AA Speaker - Mike M.

Mike was a street drunk, a junior high dropout, and a petty criminal who once demanded 100 cheeseburgers at hammer-point — until a guy named Dan shook his hand, took him to meetings every night for six months, and showed him the book that changed everything.
We just launched our new Episodes page — search hundreds of AA speaker meetings by topic, speaker, or step ☀️  Sober-Sunrise.com
Mike grew up watching his mother drain a bottle of whiskey she'd promised to pour out, got thrown out of Catholic school at 10 by a nun who told him to leave and don't come back, and took that as God saying the same thing. He spent his drinking years sleeping in strangers' unlocked cars, breaking into basements looking for a place to sleep, and getting hauled into court for crimes so absurd the whole room laughed while he stood there shaking. He once tried to rob a liquor store, saw a sign about mandatory five-year sentences, and bought a six-pack instead. A guy named Dan showed up at his door, shook his hand, and took him to meetings every night for six months. Mike read the Big Book under a kitchen table in a cockroach-infested apartment and fell in love with it that first night. At three weeks sober, Dan told him to go talk to a newcomer — and when their hands touched, Mike stopped being a useless human being for the first time in his life. He had Dan as a sponsor for all 31 years, told him he loved him at the VA hospital, said save me a seat, and walked out. Dan died two days later.
Mike M. from Brunswick, MD speaking at the Rosemont Group, Frederick, MD - July 20th 2009
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 
 

The First Time I Told the Truth I Didn’t Catch Fire - AA Speaker - Tony K.

After years of drinking, hiding, and trying to outsmart alcoholism, Tony K. found hope through his sober brother, a first AA meeting he didn’t want to attend, and a program that changed his life.
We just launched our new Episodes page — search hundreds of AA speaker meetings by topic, speaker, or step ☀️  Sober-Sunrise.com
Tony K. shares a raw and funny story of how alcohol became the answer to pain he could not face, beginning at 17 after family upheaval and quickly turning into a full-speed descent that left him isolated, angry, and spiritually empty. Even though he swore he would never become like the alcoholics in his family, drinking gave him instant relief, false confidence, and a way to numb everything he could not handle, until it slowly tore his life apart. The turning point came through watching his older brother change in Alcoholics Anonymous, then finally saying yes to a meeting himself, where one person simply listened and gave him hope. From there, Tony found sponsorship, worked the steps honestly, and discovered real freedom through inventory, truth-telling, service, and staying in the moment. It’s a powerful young-person sobriety talk about fear, ego, brotherhood, and what happens when someone finally becomes willing.
Tony K. from Auburn, CA speaking at the ACYPAA roundup in Sacramento, CA - April 5th 2008
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 
 
 

I Loved Blackouts Because I Was Neither Dead Nor Really Alive - AA Speaker - Damon G.

Damon was a militant atheist who chased blackouts as his only escape from a life he didn't want — the steps didn't just get him sober, they sent him to seminary.
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Damon was spiritually sick long before alcohol showed up — the ruined relationships and lost jobs were already happening. When he found what booze could do, he chased blackouts six or seven nights a week because they were the closest thing to not existing without having to die. When that stopped working, he crawled into AA and almost walked right back out after hearing people with decades who sounded just as miserable as he felt. A sponsor who pounded the table about doing more showed him the book, and Damon walks through all 12 steps across four sessions with the precision of someone who thinks his way into corners and had to think his way out. From the claw in Union Square that was really trying to lead him somewhere better, to returning a box of stolen library books so old they couldn't scan them, to spontaneously grabbing his shoes and running out to church with his father for the first time — the man who would have taken his own life to avoid anything religious ended up in seminary, not because he found a belief system but because the steps gave him an experience he still can't describe.
Damon G. from Bay Shore, NY. Four night step-work covering all 12 steps at the Primary Purpose Group in Seaford, NY – February 5th thru February 26th, 2011. 
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 
 

I Got Fired Twice From the Same Job in 24 Hours - AA Speaker - Josh H.

Josh got sober at 19 after a carbon monoxide attempt, a psych ward, and getting fired twice from the same job in 24 hours — and discovered that the same program he came to as a last resort became the first place that ever felt like home.
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Josh was adopted from the Philippines, took his first drink at 10 — vodka and Kool-Aid at a party where he told a cop his name was Richard Head and walked free — and chased that moment for nine years through heroin, a psych ward, solitary confinement, and a carbon monoxide attempt where strangers found him moments before it was too late. He got fired twice from the same job in 24 hours, came to in the Mojave Desert, and walked into AA at 19 because he figured if sobriety didn't work the pain would finish him off. At six years sober he went back and made amends to the people who saved his life — the woman behind the desk started crying and said "no, it was you." The kid who never had a home finally found one.
Joshua H. from Toronto, Ontario, Canada speaking at the 2007 Arizona State Young People's Conference in Pheonix, AZ - November 24th 2007
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu