
Free Daily Podcast Summary
by Sober Sunrise
Sober Sunrise brings you AA Speaker Tapes from around the world. Rather than an AA discussion podcast, Sober Sunrise brings you speakers who share step-work, workshops, and general fellowship discussion points.We are not affiliated with AA in anyway.
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Jerry thought he managed his law practice, his family, and his drinking. In AA, an aquarium full of fish that refused to follow his rules helped him see what he had been missing. ☀️ 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 Jerry got sober on January 1, 1973, after spending a year and a half secretly trying to pass his own controlled-drinking test. He had a successful Dallas law practice, a wife and children, a comfortable home, and money in the bank, yet nothing seemed to mean anything anymore. Alcohol had become a vacation from responsibility that he could no longer end when he wanted. His wife's involvement in Al-Anon threatened the control he thought he had, until her suggestion to try limiting his drinks forced him to confront a test he never passed. After another lost New Year's Eve, he decided to quit, refused help, threw the recovery books against the wall, and discovered that not drinking left him shaking, sleepless, and thinking about alcohol constantly. A tentative prayer and a call to AA's central office led him toward help, although he first wanted a meeting full of college graduates near a country club. He eventually found a group above a 7-Eleven, parked in the alley, and climbed the fire escape to keep his attendance discreet. There, laughter, sponsorship, the Big Book, the Twelve Steps, and small acts of service began changing how he saw himself. Jerry illustrates the mental obsession with a bulldog that repeatedly returns to a hog it cannot handle, then recognizes his own self-centeredness in an aquarium whose fish refuse to follow his plans. The deeper evidence of recovery comes through his mother's illness: while drinking, he fled into alcohol; five years sober, he could stay present, support his family, and face grief without wanting a drink. Speaking on freedom through action, Jerry connects surrender, inventory, amends, and working with newcomers to a life with purpose, trust, and room to be himself. Jerry J. from Dallas, TX speaking at the Rocky Point Roundup in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico - October 13th 2000 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
At 1 a.m., Jim rode his little sister's purple Schwinn to an AA member's house because meetings alone weren't quieting his head. A sandwich and an exchange of drinking stories opened a door he had kept shut for years. ☀️ 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 Jim got sober on November 19, 1987, after years of trying to control drinking that made him feel confident, connected, and finally part of the human race. He traces that need back to first grade, when every conversation felt like an audition and being judged seemed unbearable. His first night drunk at 16 offered relief, but craving brought escalating consequences: arrests, evictions, wrecked cars, dangerous behavior, and serious legal trouble. A friend paid him $20 to attend his first AA meeting in 1985, and for two years Jim visited the fellowship during the week while continuing to drink on weekends. Treatment finally introduced him to the possibility of praying to a God he did not yet believe in. Afterward, an AA member drove him to meetings every day, but attention and fellowship could not settle the fear and unfinished business waiting at home. One desperate night, Jim called that man and rode over on his sister's little purple bicycle. Instead of questioning him, the man made a sandwich and shared his own stories until Jim could laugh, lower his guard, and tell the truth. Years later, Jim recognized that sponsoring others while refusing to be an accountable sponsee had left him following his own direction. A new sponsor helped him put the Big Book, the Steps, and working with others at the center of his life. His closing hospital story brings the lesson full circle: sharing an embarrassing memory helps another alcoholic emerge from hopelessness, while giving Jim the change in perspective he needed himself. For Jim, recovery means connection, honesty, useful action, and finding a life in Alcoholics Anonymous that gives him more than drinking ever could. Jim B. from Chatham, NJ speaking at the Port Fishington speakers meeting in Philadelphia, PA - April 20th 2009 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
Bob was holding a beer and asking what was wrong with his life. His AA story follows the answer through a family intervention, a sponsor who challenged "my program," and a phone call that changed two alcoholics' lives. ☀️ 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 Bob got sober on November 8, 1989, after agreeing to family counseling and discovering that his whole family had gathered for an intervention. He grew up in a loving Akron home, found acceptance and relief through drinking as a teenager, and built a marriage, a family, and a career while alcoholism quietly took over. Missed school events, unpaid utility bills, two lost homes, and the hurt in his children's eyes became problems he tried to wash away with another drink. At the intervention, his ten-year-old daughter's poem finally reached him, and four days in treatment introduced him to AA through people who brought coffee, shared their own stories, and read from the Big Book. The death of a beloved neighborhood father brought grief and the first real permission to cry, an experience Bob connects with the lifting of his compulsion to drink. Sobriety still required more than putting down the bottle. Nearly two years in, his sponsor challenged him to stop relying on "my program" and begin living the Twelve Steps as a way of life. Years later, after that sponsor died, Bob found himself isolated and struggling despite meetings, sponsorship, and service commitments. A phone call from a mountainside in California restored his connection with another alcoholic who was struggling too, giving him his own AA arithmetic: one plus one equals three when God enters the relationship. He closes with a child praying for a suffering drinker at Dr. Bob's house and a reminder that working with others means reaching out, staying accountable, and carrying the message. Bob C. from Akron, OH speaking at the Aberdeen Wednesday Night Group's Quarterly Meeting in Aberdeen, SD - 2007 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
Dustin stayed sober on fear and meetings for more than a year, then relapsed harder than before. His AA recovery changed when a sponsor took him through the Big Book and put him to work helping other alcoholics before he felt ready. ☀️ 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 Dustin grew up in an alcoholic home in Cambridge, Minnesota, feeling uncomfortable in nearly every situation long before his first drink at 14 gave him temporary relief. Childhood trauma, the loss of his father, drugs, overdose, hospitals, and treatment followed. He once spent nearly a year moving through institutions, outpatient care, and as many as a dozen AA meetings a week, then remained sober for just over a year on fellowship and fear without taking the Steps. When that fear stopped holding him, the relapse was immediate and severe. Dustin spent the next five years pointing to the house, cars, job, marriage, and children as proof that he could not be alcoholic, until those outward markers began falling away and a violent, self-destructive bottom brought him back to treatment. This time, the Big Book gave him a practical solution. He wrote inventory, completed a Fifth Step, met a sponsor who insisted on real amends instead of vague promises, began daily inventory and prayer, and started taking other alcoholics through the book at barely two months sober. Dustin’s central message is the paradox he learned through the Twelfth Step: if he waits until he gets better before helping others, he will never get better. Recovery came when the Steps connected him to a power greater than himself and made it possible to be present as a father, employee, friend, and sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Dustin B. from Cambridge, MN speaking at the Isanti Saturday Night Live Group in Isanti, MN - October 21st 2006 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
Joseph says the more he obsessed about staying sober, the sicker he became. His AA recovery changed when he stopped staring at the problem and committed himself to the Steps, amends, testimony, and service. ☀️ 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 Joseph drank from childhood and eventually reached a point where alcohol occupied nearly every waking thought. He remembers waking in jail, asking what time it was, and being told he should worry about what day it was because he had been asleep for three days. While serving time, Joseph first heard about Alcoholics Anonymous from another prisoner whose honesty, openness, and freedom from resentment gave him something Joseph wanted, even though the man fully expected to drink again after release. Joseph attended AA meetings inside but arrived certain that the sick people around him needed his help. He planned to take only the Steps he liked, rejected sponsorship, and later decided that AA did not work because nobody reached him the way he expected. Online recovery rooms and a New Year’s Eve alcathon brought him back. A small Step group followed, then a man he spoke with regularly finally asked whether Joseph had a sponsor and announced, “Well, you’ve got one now.” Much of that sponsor’s guidance only became clear after his death. Joseph’s deeper change came when he stopped making sobriety itself his entire focus and committed to working the Twelve Steps. He describes surrender, hope, and faith in the first three Steps; learning to live in the present through inventory; laughing through a Fifth Step in prison; discovering the Sixth Step as a state of readiness; making amends instead of spending another apology; taking a daily personal inventory; and hearing his higher power through the testimony of other alcoholics. His pathway is toward self-acceptance: getting outside himself, working with newcomers, and receiving through service what he once tried to manufacture with alcohol. Joseph G. from Royalton, IL speaking at the AA Downunder Group - July 20th 2007 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
Sean arrived at his first Hollywood AA meeting smelling like a gimlet and terrified of 400 friendly strangers, then felt something he had not experienced in years: safe, understood, and accepted. ☀️ 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 Sean began drinking at fourteen, entered the theater professionally in his early twenties, and built a successful Broadway career while consuming a quart of scotch a day and maintaining what he calls a wonderful world of chemistry. The outside still looked impressive, but inside he lived with the fear of not getting what he wanted, losing what he had, being exposed for who he was, and being punished for it. After an arrest at the end of a long vodka run in April 1974, Sean admitted he was alcoholic to a sober coworker. She stopped everything, read the Big Book with him, shared her own story, and brought him to a 400-person Hollywood Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. He arrived frightened, unwell, smelling like a gimlet, and unable to understand the barrage of slogans coming from cheerful strangers, but identification gave him his first feeling of safety in years. A sponsor then guided him through the Twelve Steps as actions rather than subjects for discussion. Inventory showed Sean that he did not have baggage but cargo; the Fifth Step gave him one person who knew the complete story; amends became a commitment to change; and continued inventory, prayer, meditation, sponsorship, and service taught an alien and outsider how to belong. At thirty-three years sober and newly divorced after a long marriage, Sean is candid about the fear, sadness, embarrassment, and uncertainty beneath his jokes. He returns to AA for reassurance and reports to the fellowship as his teachers: recovery is not a finished destination or a lawn chair on a plateau, but a full-time adventure in which people learn to carry the good news into their homes, work, communities, and relationships. Sean A. from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada speaking at the 33rd Annual AA Rally in Campbell River, British Columbia, Canada - August 5th 2007 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
At fourteen months sober, Pat accidentally tasted vodka and thought nobody would know. The AA foundation built through meetings, sponsorship, service, and washed coffee cups answered with three words: God will know. ☀️ 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 Pat, sober since August 28, 1970, grew up in Brooklyn with an alcoholic father and a mother whose long dependence on stimulants and alcohol left Pat watching other people for cues about how to think, feel, and behave. She began drinking alone at fifteen because alcohol quieted the confusion and briefly filled the empty place inside her. Over the next twenty years, drinking became the organizing principle beneath marriage, motherhood, rigid household control, late-night binges, rage, and relationships that looked acceptable from the outside while collapsing internally. After a humiliating afternoon at a family picnic and a blackout behind the wheel, Pat walked into Brooklyn’s Canarsie Group. For one hour, the hole inside her felt filled. A sponsor claimed her, the group put her to work, and she stayed close through meetings, speaking commitments, service, washing coffee cups, sweeping floors, and traveling in caravans with other members. When her family moved to rural New Jersey at fourteen months sober, that entire structure disappeared and the emotions she had never learned to face came rushing back. At a gathering one night, Pat unknowingly took a sip of a drink containing vodka. Her first thought was that nobody would know; the next was that God would. She put it down, called her sponsor, returned to a meeting, and began working the program at a deeper level. Through inventory, amends, prayer, willingness, education, nursing school, a painful divorce, a new marriage, sponsorship, and continued service, Pat found the mind, choices, emotional life, and heart’s desires that alcohol had postponed. Her message is that everything she needed to grow and change was already present in the books, rooms, and people of Alcoholics Anonymous. Pat R. from Lake Hopacong, NJ speaking at the 3rd Buckeye Roundup in Cincinnati, OH - November 11th 1994 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
Tom says being around AA is like spending fifty years around airports without learning to fly: recovery began only when he became willing to do absolutely anything, take the Steps, and stay useful. ☀️ 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 Tom, sober since September 15, 1978, shares what Alcoholics Anonymous taught him about living with alcoholism rather than searching for a loophole out of it. Born in Pennsylvania and introduced to heavier drinking while attending college in Ohio, he entered marriage and fatherhood wanting to be dependable but steadily became the opposite: he lied about his drinking, took company money, lost jobs, neglected his family, and repeatedly lowered the line he swore he would never cross. Even after a doctor identified alcoholism, Tom turned a controlled-drinking experiment into proof that he had passed the test, then stayed to give himself a graduation party. A geographic move and a country-club career could not stop the progression. When the job, home, finances, relationships, and hope finally collapsed, the AA meetings he had resisted became the only place left to go. Tom told a sponsor he was willing to do absolutely anything, and the fellowship began teaching him how to live through the Big Book, the Steps, a home group, prayer, accountability, and action. At a year and a half sober, legal and financial consequences returned, but another member helped him stop asking God to remove the burden and start asking for the strength to carry it. Tom follows that lesson through family decisions, General Service, sponsorship, and daily practice of Steps Ten, Eleven, and Twelve. Nearly thirty years into recovery, his message remains practical: it is not the meetings you make but the Steps you take, spiritual maintenance cannot wait until something breaks, and all anyone can stay sober in is now. Tom K. from Jacksonville, FL speaking at The 42nd Annual New Hampshire Convention in North Conway, NH - April 11th 2008 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
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Sober Sunrise brings you AA Speaker Tapes from around the world. Rather than an AA discussion podcast, Sober Sunrise brings you speakers who share step-work, workshops, and general fellowship discussion points.We are not affiliated with AA in anyway.
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