Advertise on podcast: Sober Sunrise - AA Speaker Podcast

Joe once wanted to find an AA meeting just to prove he didn't need meetings anymore. Eight months after his fifth sober birthday, he was drinking again. The lesson he brought back wasn't another reason to say no. It was a different way to live through the Twelve Steps. ☀️ Sober Sunrise App Listen to Sober Sunrise AA speaker talks anytime, track your sober time, take a daily pledge, and keep recovery support close throughout the day. 📱 https://sober-sunrise.com/app If you enjoy the app or find it useful in your recovery, a quick rating or review on the App Store would mean a lot and helps more people find Sober Sunrise. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive Hundreds of AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter Joe, 32 years sober, brings a dry old-timer's humor to his AA story of war, writing, radio work, relapse, and learning to stop running everything. He recalls coming home from World War II, becoming so ill from drinking that he couldn't complete a book tour, and entering Alcoholics Anonymous after his wife suggested they might help him live a little longer. A decorated fighter pilot he admired made the Twelve Step call, but Joe initially treated recovery as a matter of refusing the first drink and agreeing with the book. After five years and eight months sober, followed by a three-month relapse, he returned with a different understanding of powerlessness. He walks through the slow surrender that led to his simple Third Step phrase, "God, take charge," then gives a funny, pointed account of working all twelve Steps forward or backward. The message becomes especially clear when Joe speaks about devastating bereavements: serenity doesn't erase grief, but the program has helped him face it without wanting a drink. This is a practical talk about surrender, amends, daily inventory, carrying the message, and the distance the Steps can put between him and his next drink. Joe K. from Carmel, CA speaking in San Leandro, CA - February 11th 1995 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Sandy nearly missed the liquor store because he couldn't get his shoes untied. He decided the solution was loafers. His AA story follows that same brilliant logic all the way to the old ideas he finally had to drop. ☀️ Sober Sunrise App Listen to Sober Sunrise AA speaker talks anytime, track your sober time, take a daily pledge, and keep recovery support close throughout the day. 📱 https://sober-sunrise.com/app If you enjoy the app or find it useful in your recovery, a quick rating or review on the App Store would mean a lot and helps more people find Sober Sunrise. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive Hundreds of AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter Sandy shares a funny, sharply observed AA talk about the fear, guilt, and secrecy that came before his drinking and followed him into sobriety. Raised in Connecticut, he describes finding an hour of ease at Yale and spending years paying a higher price to chase that feeling. His Marine Corps flying career becomes the backdrop to blackouts, withdrawal, rationalization, and the increasingly desperate effort to look like a man without a problem. After a seizure, hospitalization, and a brief return to drinking, a forceful Twelve Step caller gets him into meetings and keeps coming back for him. Sandy then discovers that reading all the Steps in 45 minutes is not the same as living them, and that his childhood fear of God has come into AA with him. Through sponsorship, the group, and a willingness to turn his life over, he begins to experience a Higher Power that understands rather than condemns him. The closing story puts it simply: AA can throw him a life preserver, but he still has to let go of the old ideas he insists on calling his own. Sandy Beach from Tampa, FL speaking in Palm Springs, CA - June 5th 1976 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

After years of Big Book study, Peter could recognize the page numbers behind other people's AA talks. A new round of step work raised a harder question: was he seeking God, or had he started worshiping what he knew? ☀️ Sober Sunrise App Listen to Sober Sunrise AA speaker talks anytime, track your sober time, take a daily pledge, and keep recovery support close throughout the day. 📱 https://sober-sunrise.com/app If you enjoy the app or find it useful in your recovery, a quick rating or review on the App Store would mean a lot and helps more people find Sober Sunrise. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive Hundreds of AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter Peter shares his Alcoholics Anonymous story from a fear-filled childhood in Brooklyn to fifteen years sober and a renewed willingness to be taught. After losing his mother, he found that drinking quieted the fear and made him feel present, but it eventually led to stealing from his family, repeated treatment stays, and sleeping in a Lower Manhattan hallway. His father found him, held him instead of shouting, and helped him into a seventh treatment program. Big Book sponsorship gave Peter a way to recover, make amends, and become useful in a family he had hurt. But the talk doesn't stop at getting sober: he challenges the comfort, postponed amends, and spiritual pride that can creep into long-term recovery. With another sponsor, he begins looking beyond knowing the words toward the Power they point to. The closing story brings that work back to a Brooklyn sidewalk, where he faces a childhood memory of his mother's collapse and finds personal meaning in two familiar names etched in concrete. Throughout, Peter connects Steps Ten and Eleven, teachability, and working with other alcoholics to a freedom that goes beyond simply not drinking. Peter M. from Union, NJ speaking at the Fellowship of the Spirit in Silver Creek, CO - July 27th 2003 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Three and a half years sober, Cookie had a Big Book on the table and Grapevines fanned out so everyone would know she was in AA. She was going to meetings, sponsoring women, and falling apart. Then she finally opened the book and followed the directions. ☀️ Sober Sunrise App Listen to Sober Sunrise AA speaker talks anytime, track your sober time, take a daily pledge, and keep recovery support close throughout the day. 📱 https://sober-sunrise.com/app If you enjoy the app or find it useful in your recovery, a quick rating or review on the App Store would mean a lot and helps more people find Sober Sunrise. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive Hundreds of AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter Cookie grew up loved, encouraged, and financially comfortable, yet alcohol quickly became the thing that quieted her relentless feeling of not being good enough. Her story moves from teenage drinking and a glamorous-looking marriage to trauma, serious injuries, and a life so isolated she describes crawling across an expensive Persian rug for another drink. Getting sober on October 25, 1983, did not immediately free her from shame or the need for approval. At three and a half years sober, she was busy in AA but hadn't learned to use the Big Book as a program of action. She describes beginning a Fourth Step with herself at the top of the resentment list, finding experienced Big Book sponsorship, and taking other women through the work. Years later, facing her father's death, divorce, and cancer treatment, she discovers what all that connection means: AA friends and generations of sponsees organize round-the-clock care so she doesn't have to face it alone. Cookie S. from Edina, MN speaking at the Duluth Roundup in Duluth, MN - September 24th 2005 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Seven trips to detox in one month, and David still couldn't believe the happy people in AA were really sober. A woman with a Big Book helped him question something even harder to let go of: the belief that he was too dirty to belong. ☀️ Sober Sunrise App Listen to Sober Sunrise AA speaker talks anytime, track your sober time, take a daily pledge, and keep recovery support close throughout the day. 📱 https://sober-sunrise.com/app If you enjoy the app or find it useful in your recovery, a quick rating or review on the App Store would mean a lot and helps more people find Sober Sunrise. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive Hundreds of AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter David traces his drinking from childhood rejection to the streets of Minneapolis, repeated detox stays, and nights trying to keep warm behind a bank on Nicollet Mall. Entering treatment at a state hospital with almost nothing, he believed he had done too much and fallen too far to be accepted in AA. He describes the people who took him to meetings, the sponsor he called every day, and learning to work the Twelve Steps through the Big Book while finding a Higher Power separate from the religion he had rejected. After several years sober, restlessness brought him to another surrender, a greeter's job, and a renewed connection with Big Book AA. Now more than twelve years sober, he talks about forgiveness at his father's graveside, caring for a close friend dying of AIDS, and rediscovering the fellowship's love during a year of loss. The thread through it all is simple: the actions that helped him at the beginning still work, even when his feelings are pulling him somewhere else. David N. from Minneapolis, MN speaking at the 6th New Orleans Roundup - August 14th 1993 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

More than 30 years sober, Keith leaves his best friend's hospice bedside to speak at an AA conference. Their friendship began with a cup of coffee and an offer: "I'll pray. You partner." Now, the man who once wanted nobody has learned what it means to belong. ☀️ Sober Sunrise App Listen to Sober Sunrise AA speaker talks anytime, track your sober time, take a daily pledge, and keep recovery support close throughout the day. 📱 https://sober-sunrise.com/app If you enjoy the app or find it useful in your recovery, a quick rating or review on the App Store would mean a lot and helps more people find Sober Sunrise. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive Hundreds of AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter Keith got sober on May 13, 1973, after a desperate morning in a Washington, D.C., basement finally led him to ask for help. With Irish Catholic humor, he recalls a schoolboy scheme to put extra beads on rosaries, finding instant confidence in alcohol on his way into the Marines, and being unable to keep a promise not to drink while his premature daughter fought for her life. His AA message is practical: sobriety is not waiting until every problem is solved, but maintaining a spiritual condition, making amends, and helping other alcoholics. The heart of the talk is the return of relationships, including a $1,000 loan that let his father be his father, his mother's gratitude that AA brought her boys home, and the friend who became his brother. Speaking from his own Catholic faith, Keith describes the privilege of being present through illness and loss instead of drinking for the courage to face them. Keith L. from Wilmington, NC speaking at the 34th Midwinter Conference in Midland, TX - January 16th-18th 2004 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Ralph's two-year-old daughter caught him taking money from her piggy bank. Years later, a photo at her UCLA graduation shows him what AA has helped make possible: being a father his daughters can trust. ☀️ Sober Sunrise App Listen to Sober Sunrise AA speaker talks anytime, track your sober time, take a daily pledge, and keep recovery support close throughout the day. 📱 https://sober-sunrise.com/app If you enjoy the app or find it useful in your recovery, a quick rating or review on the App Store would mean a lot and helps more people find Sober Sunrise. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive Hundreds of AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter Ralph grew up in South Central Los Angeles, one of six boys raised by a mother who returned to school, worked two jobs, and kept the family together after his father left. A straight-A student and student leader, he wanted to stand out, but lived in what he calls the prison of what he thought other people thought about him. A first drink at 16 seemed to supply the confidence he lacked. Party drinking became daily drinking and drug use, and even after college and a job counseling students, his life narrowed around getting loaded. He describes repossessed cars, stealing from his wife's purse, taking change from his daughter's piggy bank, and returning to his mother's home after being put out of his own. He wanted desperately to be a father, yet could barely stay for a half-hour visit before disappearing. By October 11, 1986, he was exhausted enough to enter another recovery program and begin listening differently in AA. He had previously repeated other people's impressive lines while continuing to get loaded. This time, he brought willingness and learned to read the Big Book for similarities in drinking, thinking, feelings, and actions instead of dismissing the differences in Bill's life. Ralph connects recovery with sponsorship, the Twelve Steps, meetings, working with another alcoholic, and becoming available to a power greater than himself. Twenty years sober does not mean life has been easy: he describes financial trouble, moving back to his mother's house at 16 years sober, and learning to ask whether things are all right in this moment. The gifts show up in ordinary family life. His younger daughter trusts that he will come home when he says he will, his older daughter graduates from UCLA with him there beside her, and the brothers give their mother a surprise 75th birthday party, the first party she has ever had. Throughout this warm, funny AA talk, Ralph celebrates the people whose service keeps recovery available and the families changed when someone comes back to life. He closes with enthusiasm, gratitude, and a reminder that laughter belongs in a program he takes seriously. Ralph W. from Los Angeles, CA speaking at the Santa Barbara Convention in Santa Barbara, CA - October 2006 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

John's canceled flight put him beside a nervous AA member on her first sober trip away from home. A piece of needlepoint started the conversation, and the next three hours became a meeting neither had planned. ☀️ Sober Sunrise App Listen to Sober Sunrise AA speaker talks anytime, track your sober time, take a daily pledge, and keep recovery support close throughout the day. 📱 https://sober-sunrise.com/app If you enjoy the app or find it useful in your recovery, a quick rating or review on the App Store would mean a lot and helps more people find Sober Sunrise. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive Hundreds of AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter John began drinking at 25 and quickly found that, once he started, enough was never enough. He describes blackouts, DWIs, moving to avoid court dates, and agreeing to treatment mainly to get out of jail. A nine-dollar-a-day treatment center fits his budget, but he arrives convinced he is too intelligent and too busy to need much help. Watching the film I'll Quit Tomorrow gives him a different view of himself: he recognizes the alcoholic on the screen and knows he can no longer explain his drinking away. Back in Reno, he attends one men's meeting a week and feels increasingly miserable until an older AA member starts taking him to meetings every day. At a Christmas meeting, John prays to win a Big Book raffle, resents the woman who wins, and then receives the book from her. A week later, he wins another copy and passes it to a teenage newcomer. Those two experiences become his picture of AA: one alcoholic sharing with another, with something given to both. After moving to Dallas, taking inventory with a sponsor, rebuilding a career, and later going through a painful sober divorce, he discovers that being busy helping others is not enough if he has drifted from the simple program passed on to him. His sponsor's response to "my program isn't working" is to suggest he try theirs. John then shares several encounters he sees as God working through people: finding a newcomer on an obscure street he happens to know, sitting beside a frightened sober traveler after his flight is canceled, and unexpectedly connecting with a relative's wife at a small conference. After his father's funeral, an airport page for a friend of Bill W. brings him into a conversation with another man who has also lost his father. Throughout this funny, God-centered AA talk, John returns to identification, the Twelve Steps, surrender, and the help one alcoholic can offer another. He closes by inviting anyone struggling to borrow his faith until they can find a power of their own. John A. from Dallas, TX speaking at Gopher State Roundup XXVIII in Bloomington, MN - May 25th-27th 2001 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

Mark's sponsor could take almost any complaint back to a page in the Big Book. But the daily work of AA's Steps Ten, Eleven, and Twelve was still Mark's responsibility, including the meditation he skipped for his first ten years sober. ☀️ Sober Sunrise App Listen to Sober Sunrise AA speaker talks anytime, track your sober time, take a daily pledge, and keep recovery support close throughout the day. 📱 https://sober-sunrise.com/app If you enjoy the app or find it useful in your recovery, a quick rating or review on the App Store would mean a lot and helps more people find Sober Sunrise. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive Hundreds of AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter Mark gives October 19, 1982, as the beginning of his sobriety, but says it took years to understand powerlessness and begin waking up to the spiritual life described in the Big Book. In this Monday morning spiritual talk, he concentrates on Steps Ten, Eleven, and Twelve, drawing on his experiences in AA and CA. He remembers a sponsor who answered complaints with two questions: had he prayed, and did he have his Big Book handy? That sponsor also challenged him after a fifteen-minute share in a room of thirty people, asking whether taking so much of the meeting was another expression of selfishness. Mark connects that accountability with learning to take responsibility for his own recovery and to distinguish spiritual experience from opinions about things he has never practiced. His approach to Step Ten centers on watching for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear, asking for their removal, and turning toward someone he can help. He describes spending six months working with the single word "watch" and learning to notice thoughts and feelings without being completely carried away by them. His sign reading "whatever" above an altar becomes a humorous reminder of the promise of ceasing to fight. Step Eleven brings a practice he says he neglected for his first ten years sober: meditation. He describes sitting twice a day for twenty-four minutes, alongside morning preparation, attention throughout the day, and an evening review. In discussing Step Twelve, Mark explains how he talks honestly with a newcomer about willingness, inventory, amends, and the daily work ahead before they begin studying the book together. His aim is to help that person become independent of him and develop a spiritual life of their own. Throughout this direct, God-centered recovery talk, he returns to the difference between hearing about the program and living it, then asks listeners to carry that experience back into their meetings, work, homes, and service to others. Mark H. from Dallas, TX - Monday Morning Spiritual Speaker Music: Deep by KaizanBlu

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 Listen to Sober Sunrise AA speaker talks anytime, track your sober time, take a daily pledge, and keep recovery support close throughout the day. 📱 https://sober-sunrise.com/app If you enjoy the app or find it useful in your recovery, a quick rating or review on the App Store would mean a lot and helps more people find Sober Sunrise. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive Hundreds of AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter https://sober-sunrise.com/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 Listen to Sober Sunrise AA speaker talks anytime, track your sober time, take a daily pledge, and keep recovery support close throughout the day. 📱 https://sober-sunrise.com/app If you enjoy the app or find it useful in your recovery, a quick rating or review on the App Store would mean a lot and helps more people find Sober Sunrise. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive Hundreds of AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter https://sober-sunrise.com/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 Listen to Sober Sunrise AA speaker talks anytime, track your sober time, take a daily pledge, and keep recovery support close throughout the day. 📱 https://sober-sunrise.com/app If you enjoy the app or find it useful in your recovery, a quick rating or review on the App Store would mean a lot and helps more people find Sober Sunrise. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive Hundreds of AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter https://sober-sunrise.com/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 Listen to Sober Sunrise AA speaker talks anytime, track your sober time, take a daily pledge, and keep recovery support close throughout the day. 📱 https://sober-sunrise.com/app If you enjoy the app or find it useful in your recovery, a quick rating or review on the App Store would mean a lot and helps more people find Sober Sunrise. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive Hundreds of AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter https://sober-sunrise.com/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 Listen to Sober Sunrise AA speaker talks anytime, track your sober time, take a daily pledge, and keep recovery support close throughout the day. 📱 https://sober-sunrise.com/app If you enjoy the app or find it useful in your recovery, a quick rating or review on the App Store would mean a lot and helps more people find Sober Sunrise. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive Hundreds of AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter https://sober-sunrise.com/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 Listen to Sober Sunrise AA speaker talks anytime, track your sober time, take a daily pledge, and keep recovery support close throughout the day. 📱 https://sober-sunrise.com/app If you enjoy the app or find it useful in your recovery, a quick rating or review on the App Store would mean a lot and helps more people find Sober Sunrise. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive Hundreds of AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter https://sober-sunrise.com/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