AA Recovery Interviews with Howard L.

To mark the 150th interview in this podcast series, Dwight’s story is both riveting and ominous. It began with alcohol being added to his milk to keep him quiet as a toddler. Raised as an only child by a single mother in the ghettos of Harlem, he was a thief by age six and had witnessed the stabbing death of school mate at 11. A gang member by middle school, Dwight was drinking, smoking marijuana,...

Nicole's battle with alcoholism was set against the backdrop of repressed feelings from childhood and the deep closet in which hid her own homosexuality most of her life. Growing up in London, Nicole drank without consequence much of her life until she faced a seemingly insurmountable period of grief and isolation six years before she stopped drinking. Her escalating alcohol abuse, plus two suicid...

Like many alcoholics, Quinten S. started drinking in his mid-adolescence amidst a chaotic home life. Alcoholism was not prevalent in his immediate family, but the vestiges from earlier generations were there nonetheless. Quinten’s alcohol use escalated quickly during his late teens, along with regular use of marijuana. In high school and later college, his use quickly turned into serious abuse of...

With a family of origin riddled with alcoholism, abuse, and fractured relationships, Soleen was a disenfranchised child. She started drinking at 11 and progressed rapidly into alcoholic abuse. That latent disease deprived Soleen of adult supervision and good decision-making. She married at 14 and had a baby at 16 by a man nearly twice her age. Her budding alcoholism put Soleen in trouble with the...

In David's childhood home, there was one basic rule about alcohol: Don’t let it interfere with your household chores. Lacking any other parental edicts, David started drinking at age 8 and was a regular alcohol user by age 11. Alcohol’s “magical” effect of intoxication helped David cope with both the dysfunction in his family, as well as the intense feelings of loneliness that were fed by the inse...

Imagine you’ve been sober for a while and move to a new country. You don’t speak the language and the nearest English-speaking AA meetings are an hour and a half away. How would that affect your sobriety and serenity in your new digs? My guest on today’s show, Lisa F., faced that uncomfortable situation when she moved from the U.S. to Sicily in 2020. Sober nearly 15 years at the time, Lisa faced t...

Ernie's story is a fascinating excursion into a high-class lifestyle of fast cars, flashy clothes, and glittery nightclubs, all underwritten by a high paying day job and cocaine dealing on the side. As his alcohol and cocaine use turned into alcoholism and drug addiction, all accountability to career, family, and friends evaporated. His risky behavior escalated until he was arrested in a DEA sting...

Though he started drinking alcoholically from the age of 13, John's constant nemesis was marijuana, amphetamines, LSD, prescription opioids, and ultimately heroin. His parents, who divorced when he was five, desperately tried to help him. Nothing seemed to work. Every treatment failure and non-successful attempt to get John sober, including half-hearted stints in AA, only validated the label “unlu...

Though she drank for only five years during her 30's, Kristy's alcoholism surfaced quickly. By the time she found AA, her descent to the bottom had been both swift and severe. Trying to justify, then hide her alcoholism from her husband, kids, and employer only revealed to them how much worse Kristy’s drinking had actually become. She finally ran out of excuses, suffering physical and emotional de...

Getting sober at age 58, Steve had been drinking for 35 years with many opportunities along the way to acknowledge his overuse and later abuse of alcohol. But like many who got sober later in life, Steve managed his drinking, mostly limiting it to binges on weekends and holidays. Though it interfered at times during his marriage and in his relationship with his children, Steve held his marriage to...

Jon's drinking started in his late teens and continued into his thirties when the disease of alcoholism had him firmly in its clutches. By then, his use of meth-amphetamines had also spiraled out of control. Instead of supplanting Jon’s alcoholism, his drug addiction fueled his drinking until that ruinous combination threatened his job and virtually every other aspect of his life. Though he knew h...

Marty is one of the most colorful people I know in Alcoholics Anonymous. Because Marty and I attend many of the same meetings each week, we’ve gotten to know each other quite well over the past nine years.  Unfortunately, those years included relapses after 10 months, then another relapse after 14 months of sobriety. It was after his last slip, however, which landed him in a New York City hospital...

With nearly 20 years of sobriety, John relapsed after an extended period of good fortune had convinced him that he was cured. The admitted alcoholism that had brought John to the Program at age 24 had been arrested for years through his hard work in AA. And, initially, it helped him survive deployment to Iraq in the early 1990s and a horrible helicopter crash in Somalia that killed four fellow Mar...

Joining us from Nairobi, Kenya, Kassie recently celebrated seven years of sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous. Raised amidst the pomp and circumstance of the diplomatic corps, large, formal parties were a weekly occurrence in her family and she learned about alcohol’s importance early in her upbringing. Spending her high school and college years in America further developed Kassie’s abilities to drin...

As a medical doctor who secretly battled his own addiction to alcohol and drugs for many years, Jim's alcoholism literally affected the lives and well-being of others. Jim grew up with an abusive father whose military career relocated the family many times during Jim’s childhood and adolescence. He faced additional suffering during countless hospitalizations for medical conditions related to hemop...

By the time he got sober, the dark cloud of alcoholism had engulfed Guy's life. After years of heavy drinking and drug use, that cloud all but obfuscated Guy’s best efforts to manage the disease. The cleverly-crafted lies and innate charm that had worked so well for so long simply stopped working. In the dozens of jobs he held over the years, Guy’s ability to work harder and longer than others alw...

Jails, institutions, or death. These are the three bleak outcomes from alcoholism and drug addiction that faced my guest on today’s show, Ro Y. Actually, he fulfilled the first two in his late teens and early twenties after being incarcerated multiple times and being court-ordered into treatment facilities. The third option was not far behind. Ro’s increasing use from alcohol and drugs pointed sol...

Mary joined Alcoholics Anonymous 35 years ago, shortly after her father picked up his 20 year chip in the Program. Her father’s longevity and experience in AA was reflected in his willingness to let his daughter find her own way through the alcoholic mire in which she was stuck for years. By the time she came into AA in 1988, she had become emotionally, physically, and spiritually wrecked. A cry f...

At age 13, Charlie suffered hydrocephalous and underwent the first of 5 brain operations over the next 8 years. By 15, he had begun using alcohol and pot both recreationally and to relieve his head pain. With sports out of the question, Charlie learned guitar and started playing in bands. His alcohol and drug use escalated through high school and college, and ultimately through law school. By the...

Chimene's story will resonate with those in their first few years of sobriety. It will also ring familiar with those who drank for many years before alcoholism took control of their lives. In Chimene’s case, drinking was part of her life for over 30 years, from the time she was 18 until she joined AA a few years ago. A social drinker for many of those years, she functioned in her job and homelife...

Originally from England, Martyn immigrated to the U.S. in the mid-1970’s bringing along his predilections for excessive drinking. Insecurities from his earlier life, fueled by fears of not measuring up, stoked his drive to succeed. And for years, while Martyn’s drinking morphed into alcohol abuse, his rapid ascent in business and lack of consequences from drunken behavior, made functional alcoholi...

Chris G. found AA over 15 years ago, but after the first year and a half, he decided to go back out. Relapse for some is a sad and tragic story. Many alcoholics are claimed by incarceration, institutionalization, or death before they have the chance to make it back. In Chris’ case, by the grace of God, he survived to finally return to AA and today has 4 and a half years of continuous sobriety. I m...

Walt was raised in a military family who moved every couple of years. The transitory nature of Walt’s childhood and adolescence meant making and losing friends on a frequent basis. A sense of impermanence drove his desire to excel in whatever short-term opportunities the relocations created. But, by the time college allowed him to stay four years in one spot, alcohol had already pervaded Walt’s li...

With 51 years sober in AA, today’s guest, John C., shares a story chocked-full with experience that will resonate with newcomers, old-timers, and folks in-between. Growing up in Ontario, Canada, John’s childhood and adolescence were indelibly influenced by his overbearing alcoholic father and pill-addicted mother. Staying out of the house away from his parents for days at a time was one of the few...

Diana’s love of AA is unmistakable. In her words: “AA is at the center of my life. It keeps me sane. It gives me structure, a sense of purpose. It teaches me about myself. It gives me fellowship.” When I first met Diana L. on a London AA Zoom meeting almost a year ago, the humility of that sentiment had me listening carefully every time she shared in that weekly meeting. I intuitively knew that su...