Happy Monday, friend! Hope your week is starting off on solid ground. We've got some powerful shares lined up that dive deep into the gap between looking good in recovery and actually doing the work - plus a beautiful reminder about the gifts waiting for us on this path.
This Week's Episodes
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I Was Mr. AA on the Outside and Gasping for Air on the Inside - AA Speaker - Chris P. Chris P. - Bernardsville, NJ 1,489 views Spiritual Awakening Sponsorship Step 1 - Powerlessness Chris walked out of a 28-day rehab with every reason in the world not to drink and didn't make it five minutes off the train before he was in a bar. He spent 17 years drinking a fifth of vodka a day while climbing the corporate ladder in management consulting. After a blackout car accident that killed another person, he cycled through mental wards, detoxes, and rehabs - still unable to stop - until getting dragged out of a hotel by fellow AA members and doing his steps in the back of a parking lot.
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I Was Everything in AA Except Working the Steps - AA Speaker - Jay P. Jay P. - Northern Illinois, IL 1,478 views Hitting Bottom Resentments Sponsorship Jay P. spent a year and a half making coffee, cleaning ashtrays, and giving speeches he stole from other people's meetings - until someone told him he was a phony and about to get drunk. He cracked open the Big Book, and four days later his life was different.
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My Ego Wants Me Dead but Will Settle for Me Drunk - AA Speaker - Peter M. Peter M. - Minneapolis, MN 1,261 views Hitting Bottom Spiritual Awakening Sponsorship Peter went through seven treatment centers, lived on the streets of Lower Manhattan, and cursed God with everything he had - then begged Him for help from the same hallway a few weeks later. He got sober in Minnesota in 1988 and built a life on continuous step work, prayer, and meditation that goes far deeper than just not drinking.
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You Cannot Believe the Glory That's Available to You - AA Speaker - Frank M. Frank M. 740 views Big Book Study Sponsorship Step 5 - Admission Frank is a recovered attorney with 30-plus years sober who still writes a full Fourth Step inventory every single year. Decades sober, he walked the room through his latest written inventory column by column - resentments, ego, and the amends that came out of it. This is a nuts-and-bolts Big Book talk from a guy who treats the steps like power tools, not theory.
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I Ran Out of Lies and All My Toughness Just Went Away - AA Speaker - Don P. Don P. - Slidell, LA 2,771 views this month Don P. has been sober since 1967 and says the greatest promise of the program isn't that you'll stop drinking - it's that you'll become useful. In this two-part weekend talk, he shares over 30 years of sobriety, including his experience getting sober in a penitentiary where inmates read him the Big Book, and how he learned to read it out loud to others because that's how it was brought to him.
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Step of the Month: Step 5 Step 5 is where we stop living in our own heads and let someone else see us--really see us. There's something about speaking our inventory out loud that cracks open the shame we've been carrying, and what comes out the other side is usually lighter than we expected. Frank M. still writes a full fourth step every year after 30-plus years sober, and he'll walk you through his latest one column by column--resentments, ego, amends and all, like the steps are power tools, not just nice ideas. David A. was taking his fifth step at 51 days in a men's room bathroom, taught by a sponsor who understood the steps the way they were meant to work: as diagnosis, prescription, and medicine, all at once. Related Episodes: |
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Stats for Nerds You all watched 393,615 minutes of content this week. That's enough time to watch the entire Lord of the Rings extended trilogy 272 times back-to-back. We're not saying you should, but you *could*. |
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