Beyond Belief Sobriety

About a year ago, we posted Episode 137 about a secular Al-Anon group that started meeting in Boise, Idaho. That episode featured a conversation with one of the group’s co-founders, Kim L., who talked about the challenges with starting the meeting. In this episode, the group’s other co-founder, Chia provided an update on how the […]

Listening is perhaps the most valuable gift we can give to another person, and it is a great strength of AA. People don’t necessarily need to have others solve their problems, but from being heard people can learn to face and resolve their own challenges. This episode is all about the importance of listening when […]

In this episode, I speak with Mikey J. from Our Mostly Agnostic Group of Drunks (OMAGOD) located in Orlando, Florida, and now meeting online every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:00 pm Eastern. Mikey takes us through the history of the group and what they learned about hosting online AA meetings.  Key Points and Topics […]

In this episode, John Huey talks about his thoughts on COVID and alcoholism, and what the two have in common. He thinks back on friends who didn’t survive their drinking and realizes that we don’t think often enough about those who don’t make it. You can read more in John’s essay,  A Journal of the […]

John and Angela celebrate the fifth anniversary of AA Beyond Belief by taking a look back at when and how it all started.   Key points and topics discussed  Meeting Roger C. at the We Agnostics and Freethinkers International AA Conference.  Roger encouraging John to start AA Beyond Belief.  John explains why he started the podcast.  […]

Has COVID brought in a new era for Alcoholics Anonymous, or is it our responsibility to help bring one about? As meetings moved from church basements to Zoom, we are now hearing more diverse experiences from a greater number of people, as well as new ideas about the Steps or recovery in general. Maybe sharing […]

In this episode, Angela and John have a discussion about making decisions and how they learned to make better decisions in recovery. Angela talked about how attending meetings and working the Steps helped her learn to become more mindful and less reactive, and John talked about the difficult decisions he had to make early in […]

Our guest for this episode is Sarah Elizabeth from the Sober Gratitudes podcast. Now, I’ll tell you, this isn’t a typical episode for AA Beyond Belief, because Sarah doesn’t identify as either an atheist or agnostic. In Fact, she describes her experience as spiritual, and she attributes her sobriety to a higher power, which she […]

Angela and I have a free-flowing conversation covering a variety of topics ranging from our memories and thoughts about or first AA meeting to whether AA Word Services should publish a new book that covers the program of recovery. We take a call from Fred in Virginia and respond to comments on Facebook and YouTube.

Angela and I talk about friendships and how they were impacted by our drinking and what we learned from our friends in sobriety. When I got sober, I didn’t have any friends left from my drinking days, but Angela continued to maintain those relationships after she got sober. This was recorded from our Friday live […]