Sober Sunrise - AA Speaker Podcast

The Bomb Went Off at 16 Years and the Only Thing Left Was the Meeting - AA Speaker - Steve B.

Steve B. never got one sober day before AA, tried his own plan of drinking three days and giving four to the program, and 28 years later still has a voice in his head trying to talk him into one drink — but the steps gave him something the voice can't touch.
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Steve B. loved AA from the minute he walked in — but that didn't stop him from trying his own plan first, drinking Friday through Sunday and giving Monday through Thursday to the program until the Sunday bled into Monday and the whole thing collapsed. He got sober in 1979 with World War II vets who had third-grade educations, did the steps out of the book exactly the way they said, and discovered that the guy with 30 days was his real hero, not the old-timers talking quantum physics about the traditions. At 16 years sober, his wife was cheating at the wedding and the bomb went off — he walked into his home group shattered, and a one-year-old arm came around his shoulder and nobody asked what step he was on. Today he sponsors guys, moved across the country for a ninth-step amend that turned into a whole new life, and closes every talk by reminding you that God gives everything back — but it's never yours again.
Steve B. from Mount Kisco, NY speaking in Copenhagen, Denmark - August 21st 2007
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

Seven Years of Walking Into AA for Cake and Walking Back Out - AA Speaker - Larry T.

Larry T. started drinking Four Rose Whiskey at 11, bounced around with lowriders, and spent seven years walking into AA for cake and walking back out — until a Montana cowboy told him to get his own rusty rear to the meeting and everything changed
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Larry grew up in a small California house with a speed-fueled mom making afghans and a happy drunk dad sneaking through his bedroom window in refinery boots. He found alcohol at 11 and it shut off everything that made him feel different — but the window it opened got smaller every time he drank until there was no window left, just an obsession that maybe this time it would open again. He tore through lowrider bars, jails, a state hospital, a year in the penitentiary, and seven years of walking in and out of AA without ever touching the program. The Montana cowboy who kept showing up finally told him to walk himself to the meeting — and Larry walked 10 miles to get there. He made amends to the father he once hit and became his best friend, had Thursday chili with him until the day he died, and now dates his mom every week. When his daughter sat across from him covered in piercings and tattoos and asked what he was looking at, he said the most beautiful little girl he'd ever seen — and he learned that in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Larry T. from Los Angeles, CA speaking at the Aberdeen Wednesday Night Group's Quarterly Meeting in Aberdeen South Dakota - 2007
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 
 

Everyone Said My Case Was Too Special for the Regular Program - AA Speaker - Susan D.

Susan D. survived four treatment centers where everyone agreed her case was too special for the regular program — until a man with an eye patch told her the truth and she worked the steps like everyone else.
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Susan grew up in a house where her father gave her alcohol as a child, her mother gave her Valium so she could walk straight, and they called the crawlspace under the floor "bad girl jail." Down in that hole she'd dream about wood floors, a garage door that goes up and down, and being a mother where no child would ever be afraid. She lost her father, brother, and mother to tragedy before adulthood. Susan spent her adult life drinking without missing a single day, lying about everything, working in a psych hospital while hiding her own drinking, and cycling through treatment centers where everyone agreed her case was different. She drank a child's wart remover on a choir tour because she couldn't go a day without alcohol in her body. After her last crisis flatlined her in a treatment center, she called the one place with a man who'd told her the truth — and on the 11th day, they let her come back. She sat on the front row, worked the steps like everyone else, and discovered that none of what happened to her had to keep her sick. Today she lives in a house with wood floors and a garage door that goes up and down, and she flew to Ukraine to adopt a little girl who doesn't have to be afraid.
Susan D. from Dallas, TX speaking at the 20th Annual Singles Conference in Lake Murray, OK - September 4th-7th 2003
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

They Pronounced Me Dead Twice and I Still Wasn't Done Drinking - AA Speaker - Dave M.

Dave M. entered a monastery to become a priest, fell in love with alcohol on his first beer, and spent the next decade hiding bottles behind medicine cabinets, teaching religion drunk, and dragging himself across the floor for one more broken bottle — until AA taught him to stay in God's wheelbarrow.
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Dave grew up a scared, scrawny hillbilly kid in Pennsylvania who fantasized about killing his abusive father and ran to the Catholic church because it was the only safe place he knew. He packed himself into two A&P shopping bags and entered a monastery to become a priest — and fell in love with alcohol on his very first beer, dancing through the halls in his underwear at 3am. He hid bottles behind the medicine cabinet wall, taught high school religion on tranquilizers, and spent years cycling through psych wards with his wrists slit. At his worst he was dragging himself through 17 cats' worth of filth to break a Stoney's bottle on the fridge drawer handle and drink it with glass cutting his lips. They pronounced him dead twice. An old-timer gave him a gold watch and told him to talk to God for 15 minutes a day in an empty chair, and another told him step three was simple — just stay in God's wheelbarrow no matter how shaky it gets on the wire. Today the man who once fantasized about his father's blood on his hands got to clean him, feed him, and love him before he died.
Dave M. from Painsville, OH speaking at the Collinwood Liberty Group's 59th Anniversary meeting in Cleveland, OH - March 20th 2009
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

From Federal Prison at 18 to Calling Home at Six Years Sober - AA Speaker - Robbie W.

Robbie went from federal prison at 18 to getting kicked out of his own AA club at three months sober — until a pig farmer from Michigan took him home and said someday you're going to be somebody.
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Robbie grew up loved in a Catholic family in Philadelphia, fit in everywhere, and started drinking at a Yes concert in eighth grade. Within a few years he was giving himself raises at a federal bank, got arrested by the FBI at 18, and spent the next five years cycling through jails, prisons, psych wards, and the streets. He cut his arms open in a prison hole and woke up tied to a bed with cameras on him — and still wasn't done drinking. When he finally crawled into an Alano club in Kalamazoo, Michigan, they kicked him out at three months for his attitude. A pig farmer named Don C. walked out behind him, put him in his truck, and said welcome home, son. Nine months later Robbie was sober, working, and building a life. At six years he called his mom and asked if he could come home for Christmas — she said they were just waiting for him to ask. His dad knelt down and handed him an Eagles jersey with his name on the back. Today Robbie sells cars, sponsors men, served as a delegate, and has a daughter whose picture is all over his Big Book.
Robbie W. from Vineland, NJ speaking at the Aberdeen Wednesday Night Group's Quarterly Meeting in Aberdeen, SD - 2007
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

If It's Not in the Book It's Not Important - AA Speaker - Ray O.

A law professor who lost everything sat in a wet, smoldering chair planning his revenge — then a sponsor with one rule changed everything: if it's not in the Big Book, it's not important.
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This isn't a typical AA story — it's a former law professor walking through steps one through three with the precision of a courtroom argument and some of the funniest stories you'll hear from any podium. Ray O. was the youngest tenured law professor in America, sitting in a chair he'd set on fire and wet in the same night, planning exotic legal revenge on everyone who'd wronged him. His sponsor John had one rule: if it's not in the Big Book, it's not important. Six months into sobriety, Ray sat down at his desk one morning and realized he hadn't thought about a drink — and that was the moment power became real, not because someone explained it but because he experienced it. From there he builds the clearest explanation of the first three steps you'll find anywhere: powerlessness needs power, power needs an open mind, and the third step is just deciding whether you're going back or staying here.
Ray O. from Miami, FL doing a step workshop in Grant's Pass, OR - July 1991
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

My Daughter Named Her Son After Me and It's Not Because I'm a Good Dad - AA Speaker - Frank J.

Frank J. went from Marine sniper to homeless with everything he owned in a cardboard box in a stolen car — and 13 months without a drink, with no meetings, he was choking strangers and throwing eggs across grocery stores. AA didn't make him a different person. It taught him to stop acting like the one he was.
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Frank grew up in small-town Illinois, won nine varsity letters, quit high school two weeks before graduation out of pure fear, and joined the Marines at 17. He became a morning drinker before he turned 18, did two tours in Vietnam as a sniper running on 151-proof rum, and came home so broken he pulled a gun on his wife while his daughter stood between his legs begging him to stop. After losing everything — the police career, the real estate money, the wives, the kids — he ended up homeless and dying of cirrhosis. They strapped him to a hospital bed for ten days, then dropped him at an AA meeting. But the real story is what happened at 13 months without a drink and no program: a nervous breakdown, a man choked over a partition, and eggs launched across a grocery store. An old-timer told him drinking wasn't his problem anymore — living was. Today his three daughters have degrees and careers, one named her son after him, and Frank will tell you straight: it's not because he's a good dad, it's because AA taught him how to be one.
Frank J. from Sherman Oaks, CA speaking at the South Coast speaker meeting in Laguna Beach, CA - September 8th 2010
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
 

I Sent the Devil Into My Son's Room and Didn't Remember Any of It - AA Speaker - Chris L.

Chris L. spent four years sober in AA without taking the steps and almost died of untreated alcoholism — then a phone call, a big book, and three other desperate women changed everything.
We just launched our new Episodes page — search hundreds of AA speaker meetings by topic, speaker, or step ☀️  Sober-Sunrise.com
Chris grew up with a mind that told her she was never enough and always too much, found alcohol at 14 and chased three minutes of bliss for the next 20 years through blackouts, broken bones, psych wards, and a string of marriages. At her worst she was hallucinating, questioning her four-year-old son each morning about what she'd done the night before, and choosing the bottle over feeding him. She got sober but spent four years white-knuckling it on fellowship alone until her mother died of the DTs and Chris hit bottom on her bedroom floor at four and a half years without a drink. Four women opened the Big Book to page one and started doing what it said — three of them are still sober. Today her teenage son asks the drunks to pray for his friends because he grew up watching his mom love strangers in her fellowship.
Chris L. from Coshocton, OH speaking at the 19th Hiawathaland Get-Together - October 2007
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

I Got Arrested Telling My Wife About Her Bad Behavior - AA Speaker - D.J. S.

D.J. got busted with two felonies in a parking lot while lecturing his wife — court-ordered into AA, a no-nonsense sponsor and a moment in a 7-Eleven changed everything.
We just launched our new Episodes page — search hundreds of AA speaker meetings by topic, speaker, or step ☀️  Sober-Sunrise.com
DJ grew up crawling out of his skin, moved from upstate New York to South Texas at 13, and found alcohol the first night out at a reservoir. It worked so well he never stopped — through 20 years of whiskey, meth, a rock and roll career, and a marriage he wrecked one broken promise at a time. He got arrested in an HEB parking lot with two felonies and a seven-year-expired license, still convinced his wife was the problem. Court-ordered into recovery and facing prison, he couldn't make it across town without three beers. A sponsor laid out the symptoms of alcoholism so clearly that DJ finally saw he was a time bomb — and 44 days into working the steps, he walked into a 7-Eleven and felt good in his own skin for the first time in his life without needing to change a thing. On the day he was getting evicted, he chaired a meeting instead of sharing his problems, and a newcomer handed him the exact solution he needed.
D.J. S. from Ingram, TX speaking at the Lufkin Group's 56th anniversary in Lufkin, TX - June 4th-5th 2004
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Bill Wrote the 12 Steps in 40 Minutes After His Wife Said You're Gonna Get Drunk - AA Speaker - Jay S.

The 12 Steps were written in 40 minutes on a cot under the stairs — but the ideas in them had been circulating for decades. This AA history talk traces every major passage in the Big Book back to the Oxford Group books Bill Wilson and the early members were actually reading.
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Jay S. gives a deep dive into exactly where the Big Book came from, he traces specific passages from Alcoholics Anonymous back to Oxford Group literature that was on the bestseller lists in the 1920s and 30s, showing how books like "I Was a Pagan" and "For Sinners Only" and the teachings of Sam Shoemaker fed directly into the language Bill Wilson used. He walks through the night Lois Wilson stormed into the living room and told Bill he was going to get drunk because he'd forgotten the God that got him sober — and how Bill went to his cot under the stairs and wrote the 12 Steps in 40 minutes, stopping at 12 because it was good enough for the guy from Galilee. Along the way you get the real story of how the fellowship got its name from a wet brain at Bellevue who kept mumbling "anonymous alcoholics," and Sam Shoemaker's posthumous letter comparing the writing of the steps to Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. If you've ever wondered what the early members were actually reading and talking about, this is the talk.
Jay S. from Redondo Beach, CA speaking on the topic of "How AA Really Started" at the 2000 South Bay Roundup - May 2000
Music: Deep by KaizanBlu