AA Recovery Interviews with Howard L.

Alcoholism’s tornadic sweep through Brian’s life laid waste to his prospects for a happy future. Brian was raised in a family deeply rooted in alcoholism, a disease that ultimately took his father’s life. Brian’s his childhood and adolescence were further complicated by a severe skin allergy that physically and emotionally isolated him from others. By the time he started drinking at age 13, Brian’...

Wes’ love of writing songs as a kid grew into a hectic, alcohol-infused career in the music business. Whether it was writing, performing, or producing, daily drinking was just part of the gig. For a while, alcohol was unobtrusive and often served his creative endeavors. However, by the time alcohol turned on him, its debilitating effects on his body, psyche, and spirit had pushed him to the brink....

Cody’s story is a tragic tale rooted in a family rampant with alcoholism and drug addiction. Both of his parents were hard-drug users who sadly never attempted to get sober. Cody used drugs with them on a regular basis in addition to his drinking, further complicating any notions that he might be an alcoholic. As booze and heroine addled Cody’s decision-making and behavior, he was whipsawed into t...

Originally from New England, but having lived in Great Britain for many years, Margie has over 45 years of sobriety. Having faced countless obstacles to getting to AA and subsequent challenges to sobriety during her 4 decades in the Program, Margie has remained as passionate and committed to the AA as one can be. In all those years, the longest she’s ever gone without a meeting was 10 days (during...

Mike's qualification for AA was honed by years of alcohol and drug abuse. Like so many others in our Program, Mike’s experience with alcohol started as a young teenager who drank to overcome feelings of being “less than”, despite his being raised by his grandparents in a strict, but loving home. Mike’s grandfather was the local Baptist minister. Any abhorrent behavior Mike engaged in was quickly a...

Laura B. got sober at age 17 after 4 years of intensively developing her alcoholism into qualification for AA. In that first meeting, she picked up a desire chip that initiated her 37 years of sobriety as an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous. A compelling aspect of Laura’s story is that her father was in AA and her mother was in Al-Anon. They used the tools of their respective Programs to effe...

As the frontman for a British band that was among the vanguard of punk rock in the late 1970s, my guest, David P., rode the New Wave of that musical genre as both writer and performer. Like many rock stars, his alcohol and drug use preceded, then accompanied his career. Both in good times and bad, David’s life was soaked with the same booze and cocaine that went with him when he moved from England...

When he started making the coffee, his life got better.... Thirteen years ago, Dale started attending one of my home groups, a men’s meeting that I’ve been going to for over 33 years. Since he first stepped into that meeting, his service to the group and individual men has solidified his spot in the middle of our herd. In fact, he says it was when he started making and serving coffee in the meetin...

A tough upbringing punctuated by violence and abuse led to Aileen's early use of drugs and alcohol just to survive home life. Her difficult and dangerous relationships in adulthood were mired by alcoholism of one or both parties. Self-loathing and despair, with ideations of suicide, haunted her at every turn. Indeed, Aileen’s story looked hopeless. In the end, it took in-patient mental health trea...

At age 82, Boots had lived most of his life as a moderate or normal drinker, only to find out in his late 50s that his drinking was getting out of control. By the time his family staged an intervention when he was 60, Boots had become a full-blown alcoholic with all of the collateral damage that drinking inflicts upon the unsuspecting. Boots spent four months at an inpatient treatment center face-...

On today’s episode, my guest Karen W. shares a chilling story that every long-term alcoholic needs to hear. It’s a story about alcoholism’s insidious ability to derail 28 years of sobriety into a seven-year relapse that nearly ended in suicide. Karen somehow survived that slip to achieve three years of sobriety as of the date of this interview. Her chaotic life of alcoholism and drug addiction sta...

Originally from Detroit, Robert grew up in what many would consider to be a “normal’ family in which alcohol and dysfunctional behavior were largely absent. Nonetheless, Robert found alcohol at 16 and was immediately lured to its magical properties that relieved much of the anxiety and loneliness he experienced during his teenage years. Though he made it through high school and later college with...

Al D. came into AA at 60 years of age to get sober after a lifetime of normal or moderate drinking. Punctuated by occasional binges and excessive use of alcohol to quell periods of depression or anxiety, Al was able to manage his consumption of booze and sometimes stop for years at a time. But the disease of alcoholism was just off-stage ready to make its appearance when the script of his life too...

Effective sponsorship has been the key to success in Lee's AA Program. Though sponsorship is often discussed, the role Lee's sponsor has played throughout Lee’s sobriety is especially illuminating in a way I wish every AA newcomer could see.  From the time they first met and throughout the careful working of the 12 steps, to the point when Lee started sponsoring others, the importance of having a...

Dow’s revolving-door story of getting sober, slipping, and struggling to get sober again and again should be heard by AAs everywhere. It’s a cautionary tale that shines a bright light on the cunning, baffling, and powerful nature of alcoholism. It’s the disease that’s always lurking just outside the perimeter of AA ready to claim those who let up on this Program of action. In Dow’s case, his famil...

Jim’s life as an alcoholic began with an addiction to morphine when he was 14.  Administered four times a day while he was hospitalized for a month after a serious surgery, Jim found that morphine did more than kill the pain. It helped him escape the mental tribulations he felt from childhood on. But morphine was difficult to get and he soon found that increasing amounts of alcohol was would have...

After a long period of sobriety, Marcia let up on her Program and plunged into a 7-year relapse. Seduced by the disease, she was convinced she could drink normally. That illusion took her to the depths of despair from which few survive. That she barely made it back to AA and sobriety is nothing short of a miracle. Marcia G. first got sober in 1990. But 8 years into that sobriety, her interest and...

As an alcoholic and drug addict throughout his teenage years, Randy L. got sober before being old enough to legally drink.  His difficult childhood was ruled by compulsive behavior, limited attention, and hyperactivity. Later diagnosed with ADHD, Randy was treated with meds that worked, but left him craving a calmer and steadier mental state. He soon relief in alcohol and marijuana. Though the dam...

This 154th interview in my podcast series features Helen M., from London, England. Helen tracks her nearly three years of sobriety as more than 1000 days in AA, experienced the one-day-at-at-time. Though she grew up in a home in which neither of her parents were alcoholic, Helen suffered mistreatment at the hands of her two sisters. To cope, she found the emotion-numbing relief that alcohol provid...

Jim H. is one of those alcoholics whose unabated drinking created serious medical problems amidst all the other destruction of career and family. He did not drink much in high school. But in college, he was a tie-died in the wool hippie, with a penchant for marijuana, hashish, LSD, and psilocybin mushrooms. He used amphetamines to achieve academic success. But it was the alcohol that took him down...

Marci's first exposure to Alcoholics Anonymous was at age 12 when she witnessed her father receiving his one year anniversary chip. But though her father maintained his sobriety until the end of his life through AA, little was spoken of alcoholism in her home growing up. Like many AA members who were raised in or around the Program, Marci’s decisions to drink were largely unaffected by her family...

Sex, drugs, and rock & roll were more than a cliché in the life of Elliott M. As a prominent rock musician and song-writer for years before alcoholism drove him into Alcoholics Anonymous, Elliott’s drinking ran parallel to his rise to stardom. Ironically, his best song-writing and performances were largely free from the influence of alcohol and drugs. But offstage, his drinking and drugging were d...

In a story is wrought from a difficult childhood, Diane was the youngest of four and was largely ignored by her parents, especially when her father was drinking. Until he died at 56, his alcoholism also fed a mean streak that landed hard on her family, with verbal abuse and derision often aimed at Diane. As a teenager, she found alcohol as a way to escape and her drinking followed her into four bo...

Though he first attended court-ordered AA meetings decades before his current sobriety date, John had no interest in the Program and no desire to stop drinking whatsoever. Even the week-long coma he suffered after being thrown from the car in a drunken crash did little to inhibit his drinking. John was raised in affluence by parents were "party people" who loved their alcohol and the family's stan...

As a toddler, Jim was taken to parties where he got his first taste of marijuana and alcohol. For his 10th birthday, his adult brother got him a joint and shots of peppermint schnapps. By 13, he was a daily pot smoker and drinking whenever he could. His race to the bottom ended when he got sober at age 21. On this episode of AA Recovery Interviews, meet Jim W., an active member of AA for the past...