Aa Beyond Belief

In this episode, I spoke with Brendan from the Rainham Freethinkers Group located in London, England. I met Brendan at the online International Conference of Secular AA where I was working behind the scenes and he was participating in the panel about The ‘God’ Word Pamphlet.  Brendan shares his story of recovery and his experience […]

Happy New Year, friends. I want to begin the year by writing to you about AA Beyond Belief. These last five years have gone by so fast. It’s been like a dream. I never imagined that I would ever have such an experience, but it’s been an incredible ride, and I am honored to have […]

In this episode, we meet Jenne M., and Jim D., both secular members of Overeaters Anonymous. We talk about their struggles with food addiction, the difficulty they experienced as atheists in OA, their experiences starting secular OA meetings, and their website secularovereaters.org. Topics Discussed Jim’s Story Jenne’s Story What makes a secular OA meeting, secular. […]

Colette's date of sobriety is December 23, 2006, and on the date of this posting, she is celebrating fourteen years sober. In this episode, she shares her journey as a person in recovery from anorexia, depression, and alcoholism. Her's is an inspiring story and she does a great job describing her early struggles as well as the joy she has found in being sober. 

Marty B. is a recovering alcoholic and a retired airline pilot. He got sober in AA and after his first year of sobriety, another pilot introduced him to Birds of a Feather, a worldwide network of AA meetings established for airline pilots and cockpit crewmembers. In this episode, Marty describes the unique needs of pilots in recovery and how Birds of a Feather offers a helping hand. 

In this episode, we meet Andy F., an agnostic who got sober in AA and is now writing a book about his experience as an agnostic working the Twelve Steps 

Glenn S. is a recovering alcoholic, a Richard Dawkins atheist who helped found three humanist AA meetings in New York City, and an artist who for twenty-five years brought a sketchbook to meetings that he used to take notes and sketch the people around him. The sketchbook helped him listen during meetings and resulted in a wonderful book that he titled Twenty-Five Years of Listening. This episode is the story of how the book came to be.

Luke Worsfold is an entrepreneur who fell into addiction as he began to equate his self-worth with his net worth. Quickly, his addiction spun out of control and he lost everything. In this episode, Luke tells the story of his recovery and how his podcast Lisa Inside Addiction inspired him to become an addictions counselor.

In this episode, we meet David Whitesock,  who shares his story of addiction and recovery, and how his journey eventually led him to develop the Recovery Capital Index, a useful tool for measuring recovery capital. The post Episode 197: Measuring Recovery Capital first appeared on AA Beyond Belief.

About a year ago, we posted Episode 137 about a secular Al-Anon group that started meeting in Boise, Idaho. That episode featured a conversation with one of the group's co-founders, Kim L., who talked about the challenges with starting the meeting. In this episode, the group's other co-founder, Chia provided an update on how the group has been fairing and how COVID has actually helped their group grow.    The post Episode 196: Secular Al-Anon Boise: An Update first appeared on AA Beyond Belief.

Listening is perhaps the most valuable gift we can give to another person, and it is a great strength of AA. People don't necessarily need to have others solve their problems, but from being heard people can learn to face and resolve their own challenges. This episode is all about the importance of listening when helping people we sponsor, or a new person at a meeting. This was a live stream and we responded to comments from listeners in the live chat on YouTube and Facebook.  The post Episode 195: Listening first appeared on AA Beyond Belief.

In this episode, I speak with Mikey J. from the Our Mostly Agnostic Group of Drunks (OMAGOD) located in Orlando, Florida, and now meeting online every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:00 pm Eastern. Mikey takes us through the history of the group and what they learned about hosting online AA meetings.  The post Episode 194: OMAGOD Online Secular AA Meeting first appeared on AA Beyond Belief.

In this episode, John Huey talks about his thoughts on COVID and alcoholism, and what the two have in common. He thinks back on friends who didn't survive their drinking and realizes that we don't think often enough about those who don't make it. You can read more in John's essay,  A Journal of the Plague Year.  The post Episode 193: The Plague Year first appeared on AA Beyond Belief.

John and Angela celebrate the fifth anniversary of AA Beyond Belief by taking a look back at when and how it all started.   The post Episode 192: AA Beyond Belief at Five Years first appeared on AA Beyond Belief.

Has COVID brought in a new era for Alcoholics Anonymous, or is it our responsibility to help bring one about? As meetings moved from church basements to Zoom, we are now hearing more diverse experiences from a greater number of people, as well as new ideas about the Steps or recovery in general. Maybe sharing our experience as secular AA members is making more of a difference now?  The post Episode 191: A New Era for AA? first appeared on AA Beyond Belief.

In this episode, Angela and John have a discussion about making decisions and how they learned to make better decisions in recovery. Angela talked about how attending meetings and working the Steps helped her learn to become more mindful and less reactive, and John talked about the difficult decisions he had to make early in sobriety. This was recorded from our Friday night live stream and featured comments from YouTube and Facebook, as well as from listener phone calls.  The post Episode 190: Decisions first appeared on AA Beyond Belief.

Our guest for this episode is Sarah Elizabeth from the Sober Gratitudes podcast. Now, I’ll tell you, this isn’t a typical episode for AA Beyond Belief, because Sarah doesn’t identify as either an atheist or agnostic. In Fact, she describes her experience as spiritual, and she attributes her sobriety to a higher power, which she identifies as the God of her understanding. Now, that being said, this is truly an amazing person you’re about to meet. She has an inspiring story, and she is my friend and also a friend of AA Beyond Belief. The post Episode 189: Sober Gratitudes with Sarah Elizabeth first appeared on AA Beyond Belief.

Angela and I have a free-flowing conversation covering a variety of topics ranging from our memories and thoughts about or first AA meeting to whether AA Word Services should publish a new book that covers the program of recovery. We take a call from Fred in Virginia and respond to comments on Facebook and YouTube.  The post Episode 188: Something Light and Easy first appeared on AA Beyond Belief.

Angela and I talk about friendships and how they were impacted by our drinking and what we learned from our friends in sobriety. When I got sober, I didn't have any friends left from my drinking days, but Angela continued to maintain those relationships after she got sober. This was recorded from our Friday live stream. We had one caller and several comments from the YouTube and Facebook chat.  The post Episode 187: Friendships in Sobriety first appeared on AA Beyond Belief.

Angela and I take questions from callers and the live chat on Facebook and YouTube, and then we ask each other a few questions. There is an interesting discussion about the importance of self-care, and the need for AA to modernize. The post Episode 186: Our Question and Answer Episode first appeared on AA Beyond Belief.