Sober Sunrise - AA Speaker Podcast

Bobby came to detox with everything he owned in a dirty white leather tennis bag. A woman washed his clothes, he began doing the same for other alcoholics, and five years later he was running that detox center. His AA story puts service into very practical terms.

☀️ Sober Sunrise App

☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive

🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch

🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter

Approaching 25 years of sobriety, Bobby looks back on growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, during segregation, graduating from high school at 16, and watching the promise of his early life give way to drinking. He describes military service in Germany, anger that grew more destructive under the influence, caring for his mother while she was dying of cancer, and eventually living on the streets of Cleveland. An AA television announcement prompts a call to central office, bringing a sponsor who begins introducing him to the fellowship. But meetings and treatment do not immediately end his drinking. After a night at the city mission, he asks a priest for help and describes finally surrendering the fight with alcohol. He enters the Salvation Army's Harbor Light program carrying all his possessions in a white leather bag. A woman who remembers him from better days takes the dirty clothes he is embarrassed to show her and washes them. After detox, Bobby starts returning downstairs to help the next alcoholic, including offering to wash their clothes. He recalls becoming that center's first Black director five years later. The work of recovery continues when he loses the job and resents people in AA: his sponsor tells him to keep attending meetings and shake their hands, even when he does not want to. Bobby also describes refusing to say God for his first five years, praying instead to whatever was watching over his sponsor, and gradually finding a faith expressed through how he treats people. He returns to sponsorship, the Big Book, the Twelve Steps, home groups, and the many ways to carry the message beyond the podium, from sending cards to visiting people in hospitals and nursing homes. Caring for his father becomes possible without the hatred he once carried, and his daughter knows a loving father rather than the man in his drinking stories. At the 30th Gopher State Roundup, Bobby's message is that sobriety can change what he does today, how he loves, and what he gives to the next person.

Bobby M. from Cleveland, OH speaking at the 30th Gopher State Roundup in Bloomington, MN - 2003

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

On his first sober anniversary, Derrick was crying because he thought nobody cared. Then he came home to a surprise party and discovered that, in AA, he didn't have to be drunk or in trouble to matter.

☀️ Sober Sunrise App

☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive

🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch

🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter

Derrick took his first drink on his 21st birthday and describes the next twelve years as a life he could not stop, even when he knew it was getting worse. Childhood abuse had left him believing he was stupid, ugly, and incapable of becoming anything, and alcohol became both a necessity and a way to seek attention while hiding how he felt about himself. He recounts prison, repeated treatment admissions, unstable jobs, blackouts, and coming around AA without being honest about his continued drug use. He could say the right things in meetings and collect medallions, but keeping that secret made it harder to face the people around him. A turning point comes when a sponsor and a friend help him recognize that what he wants is a different way to live. Staying sober comes before learning how to live honestly, accept care, and talk about what happened to him. On his first anniversary, he returns home to a surprise party and is astonished that people care about him even when he isn't drunk. Over time, sharing his experiences helps him discover that he is not alone. He finishes a computer-programming course, realizes it is not the career he wants, and then finds something he is good at in beauty school. An AIDS diagnosis after roughly six years sober changes his priorities again, bringing family, friends, and the value of each day into focus. Speaking in 1991, he describes living through illness and the deaths of many friends while finding room for work, showing his cats, and being a grandfather. When his young grandson announces "I love my grandpa" in a restaurant, Derrick realizes the child is not the only one who loves him. This candid AA talk returns to honesty, accepting help, and learning that normal does not mean perfect or happy every minute. After a friend's funeral, a fleeting thought of drinking gives way to a different realization: he now has a hundred ways to respond to a difficult feeling, and drinking no longer has to be one of them.

Derrick F. from Minneapolis, MN speaking at the 11th Annual Live & Let Live Conference in Kansas City, MO - August 31st 1991

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Brian put his strong opinions about local AA on his own website, then took it down and made amends. His approach to the Twelve Traditions asks what he's willing to give up for the fellowship that helped him rebuild his life.

☀️ Sober Sunrise App

☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive

🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch

🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter

Brian got sober on February 24, 1988, and admits that he initially had little interest in the Twelve Traditions. AA seemed ideal for a defiant alcoholic: no rules and nobody with the power to enforce them. As recovery gave him a life he valued, he began asking what he could do to preserve the fellowship for the next alcoholic. In this AA Traditions talk, he presents all twelve as requests for willing sacrifice rather than commands to police other members. He uses the same rhythm his sponsor taught him for the Steps: problem, solution, action, and result. Unity is the challenge, a loving God expressed through group conscience is the solution, and the remaining Traditions ask members to set aside desires that could pull a group apart. Brian explores membership, singleness of purpose, group autonomy, self-support, service, outside issues, and anonymity through his own experiences and interpretations. His clearest personal example is a website he created to promote groups he admired and criticize what he saw as watered-down AA. Although others defended his right to publish it, he came to believe it could imply he spoke for those groups, took it down, and gave the domain to Intergroup as an amends. He also recalls a proposal to remove a group from the meeting list and explains why he favored conversation over trying to compel compliance. Self-support, for Brian, includes showing up for service as well as contributing money when able; he jokes that members should be competing to take jail meetings rather than leaving commitments uncovered. Throughout, he invites disagreement and acknowledges that he is offering his understanding of the Traditions. He closes by connecting anonymity with sacrifice and principles before personalities, then admits that his own group is still a little too dominated by him. The challenge he puts to himself is the same one he puts to the room: help preserve AA by becoming willing to give something up.

Brian H. from Fort Lauderdale, FL speaking about the Traditions at the Steps and Traditions Group in Boca Raton, FL - July 23rd 2009

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

AA co-founder Bill W. recalls spending their last $500 to promote the Big Book around a national radio appearance. They expected orders by the carload. They got two.

☀️ Sober Sunrise App

☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive

🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch

🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter

Speaking in Fort Worth in 1954, Bill sets aside a planned talk on the Twelve Traditions and tells the story of how the book Alcoholics Anonymous came to be. He begins with a conversation with Dr. Bob in 1937, when counting the people who had stayed sober gave them confidence that their small fellowship could work. The question was how to reach alcoholics beyond Akron and New York without garbling the message. Bill's first answer included paid missionaries, a chain of hospitals, and plenty of somebody else's money. He recounts approaching wealthy donors, finding friends through the Rockefeller offices, and discovering that John D. Rockefeller Jr. feared a large subsidy might spoil what made the fellowship work. The book project took shape amid borrowed money, stock sold on installments, unpaid work, and arguments over nearly every chapter. Bill describes breaking the earlier six-part program into smaller pieces on a pad of paper, numbering them, and finding that he had written twelve steps. He also recalls the fierce disagreement that brought the phrase "God as you understand Him" into the program. The publishing story is just as unruly: an expected Reader's Digest feature falls through, 5,000 copies are printed, and their last $500 goes into postcards promoting a national radio interview. When they check the post office box, there are twelve cards, ten unreadable, and exactly two book orders. With creditors closing in and Bill and Lois losing their home, another member arranges a loan that keeps the project alive. Publicity in Liberty magazine, the Rockefeller dinner, and Jack Alexander's Saturday Evening Post article eventually bring inquiries the little office must learn to answer. Throughout this candid, humorous AA history talk, Bill gives credit to the alcoholics and nonalcoholic friends who kept the effort going. He closes by returning to what mattered most about the Big Book: the message it could carry across mountains and seas to alcoholics the early members would never meet.

Bill W. from Bedford Hills, NY speaking in Fort Worth, TX - June 13th 1954

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Nearly seven years sober, Samantha picked up half a glass of wine and felt one thought rise from her gut: "Here we go." Her AA talk follows the two years that came next and the actions that helped her stay sober after returning.

☀️ Sober Sunrise App

☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive

🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch

🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter

Samantha's sobriety date is September 5, 1995, but her first experience of recovery came through teenage treatment in 1983. Raised in Arcadia as the youngest of four children and the only one adopted, she remembers feeling different and being the person who persuaded others to follow her into trouble. A later stretch of nearly seven years sober ended after she stopped going to meetings and picked up half a glass of wine. Her immediate thought was "Here we go," and the next two years brought 11 arrests, three psychiatric admissions, and a life that eventually took her to Atlanta. A former sponsor directed her to a women's recovery home in Santa Barbara, and the man who supplied her drugs drove her across the country and paid for her stay. Even after being asked to leave the home at 60 days, she stayed sober while couch surfing, with AA members getting her to a 6:45 a.m. meeting and old-timers who could meet her anger without being scared of her. Samantha describes the Twelve Steps as a meal she needs to take as it is served, and stresses that remembering a terrible bottom alone will not keep her sober. She wants tools for living, not just surviving. Returning to school and entering law school are part of that new life, but a painful sober divorce exposes another difficulty: she can forgive what she did drinking more readily than mistakes made in recovery. She talks about learning not to ignore warning signs just because she wants something to work out, jokes about needing ten-minute chips for emotional sobriety, and describes sponsors and sober friends as spiritual chiropractors who keep bringing her back into alignment. This frank, funny AA talk connects Step One, surrender, family boundaries, fellowship, and willingness with the ongoing work of accepting her own humanness and learning to live sober.

Samantha M. from Santa Barbara, CA speaking at the Third Tradition Speaker Meeting in Studio City, CA - November 16th 2005

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Dick was two weeks sober and making notes for the next edition of the Big Book. His sponsor took it away and sent him to AA meetings to listen

☀️ Sober Sunrise App

☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive

🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch

🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter

Dick got sober in May 1977 after a postponed trial exposed something his legal skills could not fix: he could not guarantee what condition he would be in when the case finally reached court. Months earlier, he had collected AA pamphlets, come home drunk, and announced that the program did not work. Back at a Marietta clubhouse, he was assigned a sponsor whose answers seemed far too simple for an educated attorney: don't drink, tell the truth, and go to meetings. Dick describes reading the Big Book with a drink in his other hand, waiting for the dramatic experience in Bill's story, and later making notes for a new edition instead of looking for what applied to him. His sponsor took the book away and told him to listen. From there, this funny, practical AA talk follows his work through the Twelve Steps: making a decision and correcting course, uncovering resentments, sharing an honest Fifth Step, becoming ready through action, and learning that amends mean change. If he knocks over a neighbor's mailbox, he owes a mailbox, not merely an apology. He also tells how helping a woman in early recovery avoid a threatened prosecution allowed her to continue toward medical school. Years later, she writes to say she has followed his suggestion to use her skills to help others without pay, bringing volunteer pediatric care to children in Appalachia. Dick sees a result far beyond anything he intended when he wrote his lawyer's letter. The closing section traces decades of sober life through a rebuilt marriage, children born, a son's cancer and recovery, another son's death, his own health problems, his wife's first year in AA, and their first grandchild. Through grief and happiness, he returns to the same actions: he didn't drink, and he went to meetings. His final message is to hold on to honesty through the discomfort until freedom comes.

Dick S. from Marietta, GA speaking at the 40th North Shore Roundup in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada - April 23rd 2011

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Roz's sponsor called her a beautiful flower and a garden variety drunk. After years of wanting to be anybody but herself, AA helped her find both self-respect and the freedom to be one member among many.

☀️ Sober Sunrise App

☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive

🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch

🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter

Roz recalls growing up in an Orthodox Jewish family, losing her father before she was six, and facing antisemitic bullying after her family moved to England. Long before her first drink, she desperately wanted to be anybody but herself. Alcohol seemed to offer a way to run away while standing still, but blackouts, changing identities, moves around New York, and increasingly dangerous circumstances followed. Her first AA meeting was an accidental encounter on Christmas Eve: she thought she had found choir practice before midnight Mass, only to hear someone introduce herself as an alcoholic. Years later, with nowhere else to go, she began attending the Mustard Seed group across from her apartment. Her last drink was on Christmas Eve 1975. Early sobriety was slow and awkward: she brought expensive cookies so nobody could say she had received something for nothing, struggled to choose a dish drainer, and filled her apartment with 174 plants. A sponsor gave her a T-shirt reading "My Sponsor Says No," helping her set boundaries before she could say no for herself. Meetings and fellowship gave her somewhere to be, while step meetings became the place where she learned to change. Service grew to include Intergroup phones, prison meetings, detox work, sponsorship, and Young People's AA, but eventually another member challenged her to remember that AA was a bridge back to life. Roz describes the Twelve Steps as chiseling away everything that was not really her, including the fear that kept her from coming out as a lesbian. She shares the happiness and work of a 15-year sober partnership, with separate sponsors and meetings, and a move to Denver to be closer to her brother's children. There, away from her old AA reputation, she began learning to be a worker among workers and a member among members. This frank, funny AA talk connects sponsorship, the Steps, service, and humility with learning to live comfortably as herself.

Roz B. from Denver, CO speaking at the Sacramento gay/lesbian "River City Roundup" - November 7th 1998

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Patti slept on the Big Book like a pillow in prison. The AA members who brought it never treated her like scum, and a sponsor later helped her build a sober life one honest action at a time.

☀️ Sober Sunrise App

☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive

🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch

🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter

Patti first came to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1959, convinced she was too young, too pretty, and too rich to need what the people in the room had. Her sobriety began on February 8, 1977, after years of drinking, repeated marriages, prison, and a physical collapse that left her needing months of hospital care. She describes a childhood spent feeling unwanted in both her mother's and her father's worlds, and a first drink at North Beach, Maryland, that seemed to give her beauty, confidence, and a place to belong. For the next 22 years, she tried to recapture that feeling, playing whatever role would get her accepted and eventually losing track of the difference between her own lies and the truth. In prison in 1972, visiting AA members gave her a Big Book of her own, which she slept on like a pillow. She remembers their coffee and donuts, but especially the fact that they never treated her like scum. When she finally got sober, members sat beside her hospital bed around the clock, and a tough, loving sponsor took her home and helped her begin again. Patti talks about honest prayer, taking the Twelve Steps before reporting on them, washing dishes at the Waffle House, working a weekly budget, and repaying debts one dollar at a time. That beginning leads to a real college degree, passing her CPA exam, and learning to make amends without demanding a response. Six years of unanswered letters to her father eventually lead to a final visit shortly before his death; later, her son proudly introduces her as his mother. Throughout this funny, frank AA talk, Patti returns to the people who lived the Big Book in front of her and helped her become someone she could like and respect.

Patti L. from Largo, FL speaking at the Lubbock Conference in Lubbock, TX - July 16th-19th 1987

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Jay once lived in a Pinto and called it his "outdoorsman phase." In AA, inventory, amends, sponsorship, and laughter helped him become a man people call when they need someone to show up.

☀️ Sober Sunrise App

☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive

🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch

🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter

Jay came to Alcoholics Anonymous on May 2, 1979, after drinking from age 12, losing jobs, collecting arrests, and living in his car while insisting he was simply going through an outdoorsman phase. Alcoholism had touched nearly every branch of his family, but at his first meeting he heard people describe a freedom he had never known and was invited to join them at the beach afterward. Almost drinking on his third day brought him back to the club asking someone to "talk program to me," and a copy of the Big Book gave him language for the problem and actions he could take. He describes an awkward but sincere prayer, a sponsor and his wife who welcomed him into their home, a first inventory at 22 days sober that amounted to his greatest hits, and amends and sponsorship before his first month was over. Paying back his grandmother brought an unexpected response: she wanted to tell the women at church that the grandson they had been praying for had been restored. Jay connects those early actions with the life he has today: a sober household, daily Step Eleven practice, a daughter who has never had to fear her father, and the ability to be present for other people's joy and grief. A later Third Step leads him to help build a church in Belize, where he finds another alcoholic and exchanges stories with him in the jungle. Throughout this funny, direct AA talk, Jay returns to taking the Steps, making things right, staying available, and helping others. His closing quote about God, human folly, and laughter leaves room for mystery while reminding him to make good use of the part he can share.

Jay S. from Redondo Beach, CA speaking at The Way of Life Speakers Meeting in Goleta, CA - March 28th 2008

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Seven years without a drink hadn't made Myers comfortable in his own life. His AA talk follows the Big Book work that changed everything while his wife, children, job, and even the garden stayed the same.

☀️ Sober Sunrise App

☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive

🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch

🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter

Myers came into AA at 34 after watching his brother's life change through recovery, and he loved the fellowship from his first meeting. He had known he was alcoholic at 19, but years of fear, bar fights, and harm at home had continued before he finally asked for help. For a few sober years, the meetings felt like the best experience of his life. Then, without really working the Steps, he became increasingly frightened, resentful, and uncomfortable in his own skin. At seven years sober, his brother connected him with a sponsor whose first 45 minutes explaining the Big Book showed Myers a program he had barely understood. He describes discovering the spiritual malady, taking inventory, accepting accountability, and learning the difference between repeating opinions and carrying a message grounded in the book. Even after that change, Myers found himself struggling again when he treated Twelfth Step work as something to do only when convenient. Regular visits to the Salvation Army and other places where alcoholics needed help brought a deeper change. Kneeling in his garden a year apart, he sees the contrast: the wife, children, house, and job he once hated are now the same people and circumstances he cannot wait to return to. A badly injured newcomer he initially hoped to avoid becomes a man who works the Steps, rebuilds his life, and starts AA groups along his long-haul truck route with only months of sobriety. Myers uses that example to challenge waiting for the job, the relationship, and the car to fall into place before being useful. His message is to stay accountable, take the actions, and carry the solution to another alcoholic.

Myers R. from Dallas, TX speaking at the first London Primary Purpose Workshop at the Tivoli Ballroom in Brockley, South-East London - December 9th-11th 2005

Music: Deep by KaizanBlu