Sober Sunrise - AA Speaker Podcast

We Know the Way In and the Way Out - AA Speaker - Peter M.

Peter opens with silence, then challenges the room with a hard question: are we actually feeding the spirit, or just giving God a quick check-in on the way out the door?
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Peter M. shares a workshop-style talk on Steps 10, 11, and 12, starting with the discomfort of silence and moving into the daily disciplines that keep recovery alive. He talks about spot-check inventory, making amends quickly, writing at night, prayer and meditation on awakening, and the danger of calling it “maintenance” when the program is meant to keep growing. From there, Peter pushes into sponsorship, bridge-building, unapologetic God language, and the lost art of the 12-step call, reminding listeners that recovered people know the way in, know the way out, and are trusted to go where the sick and suffering still are.
Peter M. from Boca Raton, FL speaking on steps 10, 11 and 12 at the All Our Affairs group in Toronto, Canada - July 7th 2012Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

My Sponsor Knows, But Not This Part - AA Speaker - Kane T.

Kane kept parts of his life away from the program until prison, sponsorship, and a Fargo home group started showing him that every little thing had to come into the light.
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Kane got sober on August 15, 1996, and opens this talk by crediting God, his sponsor, AA meetings, and the United States judicial system. From feeling like he missed the class on how to be cool, to drinking in high school, losing jobs, running from consequences, and eventually going to prison, Kane tells a story about trying to manage life one piece at a time. After treatment inside, a halfway house, mandatory meetings, and a sponsor who finally took him through the book, he found a home group in Fargo and learned that service was not beneath him. Setting up chairs, cleaning floors, listening to his sponsor, and showing up early became the small ordinary actions that helped give him a life.
Kane T. from Fargo, ND speaking at the Central Pacific Group in Minneapolis, MN - 2000Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

Sober Without a Solution - AA Speaker - Melanie S.

Melanie had treatment, meetings, chips, and even years without drinking, but the real turn came when someone finally showed her what it meant to have lost the power to choose.
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Melanie got sober sometime in October 2002, then picked 10-10 so she would not forget it. In this Dallas AA talk, she tells a sharp, honest story that starts with drinking at 10, feeling painfully different long before alcohol, and spending years in treatment centers, hospitals, relationships, geographical cures, and repeated attempts to manage what she could not control. After years around AA without really understanding her problem, Melanie finally sat down with a sponsor who qualified her as an alcoholic, walked her through the Big Book, and helped her see why the Steps had something to offer. From there, her story becomes one of sponsorship, amends, service, and carrying the message because, as she puts it, that is her job description.
Melanie S. from Primary Purpose Group in Dallas, TX speaking at the SW Kansas AA Conference in Dodge City, KS - January 2008Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

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

Dave was the first AA member in Quebec, but what finally reached him was simple: the Big Book described people who got sober, went to work, came home, and lived like ordinary human beings.
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Dave, 21 years sober and serving as Canadian trustee, tells an old-school AA story that stretches from childhood fear in Mexico City to boarding school, the Bank of Montreal, Quebec City, Winnipeg, Vancouver, and years of consequences he kept trying to outrun. He remembers the first beer that opened a whole new world, the rooftop story at Portage and Main, a secret marriage that somehow survived, a cerebral hemorrhage at 23, repeated hospital stays, and the final loneliness of a police station bullpen where the fight finally went out of him. From there, a phone call to the small AA office in New York brought pamphlets, a Big Book, daily letters from a sober woman who became his sponsor, and the beginning of AA in Montreal.
David B. from Montreal, Quebec, Canada speaking at the 11th annual Alberta Conference Banquet/Speaker Meeting - February 27th 1965
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

I Lived the Twelve Steps Backwards - AA Speaker - Tarek K.

Tarek says he did not just resist AA. He lived the Twelve Steps backwards until alcohol stopped working and his life shrank to fear, isolation, and trying to control everything.
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Tarek, eight years sober from Soho Sober in London, shares with humor and honesty about the fear, people-pleasing, control, and emotional shutdown that drove his drinking. Alcohol first made him feel okay, but by the end he had money in the bank, unopened bills, a family upstairs, and a life narrowed down to work, isolation, and daily blackout drinking. After months of ignoring a sober therapist’s suggestion to try AA, he finally came through a 12-step rehab, got a sponsor, joined a home group, and started learning how to live through meetings, service, sponsorship, Step 11, and letting go of the outcome.
Tarek K. from London, UK speaking at the Christmas convention of the Serenity Group in Stockholm, Sweden - December 15th 2012
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

The Window I Broke Cannot Be Replaced - AA Speaker - Terri K.

Terri says prison is where she found God, but the harder truth came years later: some amends cannot replace what was broken.
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Terri got sober on October 17, 1993, inside a maximum security women’s prison after a fatal crash at 28 ended the life she had been running on alcohol, attention, and self-will. In this AA talk, she walks through growing up with an alcoholic mother, blacking out from her first drunk at 16, becoming a young mother without the tools to parent, and finally finding meetings, honesty, sponsorship, and a God she could understand behind prison walls. Years later, with a marriage, career, and nearly 17 years sober, Terri still speaks carefully about the harm she caused and the kind of amends that can only be made through right living.
Terri K. from Woodville, OH speaking at the 13th annual Woman to Woman Luncheon in Toledo, OH - August 8th 2010
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

Seven Years in AA Before I Tried the Program - AA Speaker - Chris R.

Chris kept coming back to AA for seven years, but nothing changed until one Big Book meeting showed him the difference between attending and recovering.
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Chris could quit drinking, but he could not stay quit. After seven years around AA, treatment, doctors, medications, meetings, and more relapses than he could count, he walked into a Big Book meeting where the room stopped telling war stories and pointed him straight at the solution. In this talk, Chris breaks down the physical craving, mental obsession, and spiritual malady, then makes a blunt case for working the steps, having a spiritual experience, and becoming useful right away.
Chris R. from Ingram, TX speaking at the Primary Purpose Group in Atlanta, GA - March 2nd 2009Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

A Book, a Pound of Coffee, and a New AA Meeting- AA Speaker - Bud M.

Bud came to AA straight out of jail with a sentence hanging over him, a restitution bill he could not imagine paying, and nobody left who wanted his phone call.
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Bud tells an old-school AA story that begins with the early days of Southern California meetings, the Hole in the Ground group, and a rough crowd of sober men who carried the message without much polish. When he came in on March 10, 1953, he had just gotten out of jail, owed more money than he could picture repaying, and had burned through family, work, and trust. In this AA talk, Bud shares how the book, sponsorship, amends, steady work, and one day at a time turned his life around, from making restitution and rebuilding family relationships to helping start a sober living house and later seeing one of those men still sober decades later.
Bud McD. at the Alano Club, Reykjavik Iceland - June 28th 2002Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

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.
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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.
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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 - 2007Music: Deep by KaizanBlu