AA Recovery Interviews with Howard L.

Alcoholics Anonymous members from around the world share their awesome stories of experience, strength, and hope with interview host Howard L.

Episodes

Howard L. – Sober 37 Years – Celebration of 175th Episode

June 11, 2025 • 66 mins

This is the 175th interview in the AA Recovery Interviews podcast series. This milestone episode celebrates the success of this podcast in touching so many peoples’ lives around the world over the past 4 ½ years. Its impact on listeners has been nothing short of astonishing. I invite you to revisit Episode 50, the interview in which I shared my personal story. I’ve sought to share parts of my sobriety journey during conversations w...

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Lauren A. – Sober Since June 2009 (Encore Episode)

June 4, 2025 • 75 mins

Lauren rose to the top of her profession as a prima ballerina and enjoyed international acclaim during her 23 years of thrilling audiences around the world. But the career she had built through years of intense training and dedication were absolutely no match for the alcoholism and drug addiction she encountered along the way. Her early forays with alcohol and marijuana were not unlike the experiences of most of us. She found they ...

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Bud S. – Sober 44 Years (Encore Episode)

May 28, 2025 • 70 mins

[Program Note: Bud S. passed away shortly after the release of this interview in 2022 at age 94. He had 44 Years of sobriety when he died. This interview may be the last time Bud shared his extraordinary story, but it lives on in the hearts those who knew him.] My guest on today’s show is Bud S., a man of remarkable longevity and long-term sobriety. At 94 years old, his 44 years of sobriety is the perfect backdrop for the story ...

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Bret B. – Sober 14 Years

May 21, 2025 • 64 mins

Growing up in a home fractured by alcoholism, Bret B. had first-hand exposure to his father’s untreated disease. The physical and verbal abuse was a lot for child to handle. Unfortunately, any solace or comfort that might have been offered by Bret’s mother was extinguished by a stroke she suffered in her early 30s (when Bret was 8) which left her paralyzed and unable to speak. Like many alcoholics who survived traumatic childhoods...

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Paul B. – Sober 7 Years

May 14, 2025 • 69 mins

Given up for adoption by his 17-year-old mother, Paul B. still describes his childhood as idyllic. Growing up on a rural English farm where beer and alcohol were a normal part of every day life, any alcoholism that Paul perceived in his family had little effect on his upbringing. In fact, his own drinking didn’t influence his behavior until his years at Oxford University where he rapidly became part of its rarified drinking culture...

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Terri S. – Sober Since August 2003 (Encore Episode)

May 8, 2025 • 63 mins

Terri S. first overdosed on pain meds when she was only six years old. Living in a Brooklyn apartment with an alcoholic father and chronically ill mother, who suffered from Crohn's disease, Terri had been given a tablet for stomach pain exacerbated by her dysfunctional home life. Reasoning that if one pill eased her pain, the whole bottle would be even better, Terri found and swallowed all her mother’s the pain tablets. She somehow...

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Audie M. – Sober 36 Years

April 23, 2025 • 72 mins

Celebrating 36 years of sobriety on the day of this interview, my guest Audie M. recorded this episode of AA Recovery Interviews during some free time between meetings at a men’s AA retreat. Audie’s proclivity for drinking was influenced by his father’s alcoholism and his mother’s helplessness dealing with it. Audie took up the family gauntlet and became a regular drinker in his teens and early 20s. His growing use of alcohol fed ...

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Kesenija P. – Sober Since February 1992 (Encore Episode)

April 16, 2025 • 66 mins

Imagine trying to get sober in a country without AA meetings or the Big Book. That's what faced Ksenija when she got sober in 1992. That, plus Croatia's viscious War of Independence. Though she had grown up in a Soviet country that paid little heed to the disease of alcoholism, the rest of Kesenija’s back-story is similar to those told by AA members around the world. She was raised in a culture in which alcohol is part of the so...

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Jennifer S. – Sober 2 Years

April 9, 2025 • 65 mins

Jennifer S. had a rough journey getting to AA recovery. She was raised in a home where her mother’s alcohol abuse was neatly ignored while frequent family parties gave Jennifer ample opportunities to sample alcohol as a child. But it was the drinking she did as a teenager and young adult to cope with family dysfunction and escape reality that turned alcohol into an unappeasable adversary. Working as an attorney, Jennifer somehow ma...

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Larry L. – Sober Since February 2011 (Encore Episode)

April 2, 2025 • 60 mins

Larry got sober at age 65, finally claiming his chair in AA after drinking his entire adult life. As a life-long bachelor, he was also a loner. For decades, his daily routine consisted of working long hours, then putting in a shift at the bar, literally drinking until closing time several days a week. Whatever little social life Larry had was confined to occasional barroom acquaintances. Drinking took its toll over the years as Lar...

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Mike V. – Sober 30 Years

March 26, 2025 • 73 mins

Mike’s story is classic tale of a life dragged to the brink of ruin by alcoholism. Brought up in a mostly normal home, his introduction to booze in was similar to many of us alcoholics who started drinking in our teens. Mike liked the effects produced by alcohol and continued to drink through six years in the Navy and for years after. Negative consequences, including two failed marriages piled up around Mike’s drinking. He started ...

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Max A. – Sober Since November 2008 (Encore Episode)

March 19, 2025 • 69 mins

Max grew up in a horribly alcoholic home with a mother who later died of cirrhosis and organ failure from drinking. To deal with the madness, Max began drinking at 13 to escape the feelings wrought by the dysfunction of her alcoholic family. Her own alcohol use escalated through high school and college well into her twenties. She admits that, at the time, she knew intellectually that drinking was connected with something terrible, ...

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Joe S. – Sober 26 Years

March 12, 2025 • 73 mins

Joe's abuse of alcohol was a big part of his teenage and young-adult years growing up in Liverpool England. By the time he moved to Australia in his early twenties, he was a full-blown alcoholic. Joe was raised in a tumultuous home, where verbal and physical abuse were a regular occurrence. Even after his parents divorced, his drunken father continued to wreak havoc on the family. Not surprisingly, by the time Joe found alcohol in ...

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Emily M. – Sober Since November 1989 (Encore Episode)

March 5, 2025 • 67 mins

[This is an encore of Episode 26 originally released May 13, 2021] Some alcoholics go to AA meetings even though they haven't stopped drinking. They may fulfill AA’s only membership requirement, expressed in the 3rd Tradition, by having the desire to stop drinking. But, for whatever reason, they just cannot stop. Though it may be unusual to have someone in a meeting who's actively drinking, their presence is still important to A...

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Jeff S. – Sober 26 Years

February 26, 2025 • 69 mins

Jeff S. got sober in 1998 after years of alcoholism and addiction to crack cocaine. Coming from a tough upbringing, he started drinking as a teen. Jeff spent five years in the U.S. Army which he enjoyed mainly because it allowed him to drink with alacrity and few consequences. But the boozing followed Jeff out of the service into a series of dead-end jobs with few prospects for success. As a functional alcoholic he did find career ...

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Beth F. – Sober 3 Years

February 19, 2025 • 65 mins

When Beth finally got sober less than four years ago, she had made it to middle age as an active, but functional alcoholic. She grew up in a family where alcoholism was present, but largely unaddressed. Beth moved nine times with her military family while still in elementary school, casting the die of a lonesome outsider. When she found alcohol early in her teens, Beth found the key to coping with life in both good times and bad. T...

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Leigh P. – Sober Since March 1995 (Encore Episode)

February 12, 2025 • 71 mins

Born and raised in London, Leigh's love affair with alcohol began in neighborhood public houses, or pubs. These establishments were and still are the centers of gathering in the town where Leigh grew up. Despite the fact that he was underage, having a pint or two of beer at the local pub was an unremarkable occurrence largely ignored by those around him. But, as he came of age, Leigh’s drinking in and outside of pubs escalated abov...

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Teska M. – Sober Since July 2016 (Encore Episode)

February 5, 2025 • 54 mins

[This is an encore of Episode 24 originally released April 29, 2021]. As the daughter of a Louisiana bar-owner, Teska’s father would spike her Coca Cola with whiskey when she was a child. But, though her family was rife with alcoholism within a culture where drinking was a way of life, Teska lived most of her life as a normal or social drinker. It wasn’t until she retired, after a long and successful career as a lawyer, that alc...

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Ryan M. – Sober 14 Years

January 29, 2025 • 71 mins

My guest today is Ryan M., who was given tequila at age nine by his father to induce an aversion to alcohol. But Ryan actually liked it, especially the warm and wonderful feeling of being drunk. That set the ball rolling in a life in which the pursuit of ease and comfort would morph into serious addiction to alcohol and drugs. Raised as an only child, Ryan describes a happy childhood and adolescence largely unaffected by alcohol us...

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Bruno R. – Sober 12 Years

January 22, 2025 • 70 mins

In his late teens, Bruno R. initially attended Alcoholics Anonymous to satisfy the terms of probation after his first DWI. His half-hearted attempts resulted in short stints of sobriety. But he wasn’t ready to do what AA suggested. Even after violating his probation with another DWI, Bruno remained resistant to AA recovery and continued to drink. Facing felony charges after his third DWI in Texas, Bruno was looking at ten years in ...

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AA Recovery Interviews with Howard L.

Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Howard L. – Sober 37 Years – Celebration of 175th Episode

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Lauren A. – Sober Since June 2009 (Encore Episode)

Bud S. – Sober 44 Years (Encore Episode)

Bret B. – Sober 14 Years

Paul B. – Sober 7 Years

Terri S. – Sober Since August 2003 (Encore Episode)

Audie M. – Sober 36 Years

Kesenija P. – Sober Since February 1992 (Encore Episode)

Jennifer S. – Sober 2 Years

Larry L. – Sober Since February 2011 (Encore Episode)

Mike V. – Sober 30 Years

Max A. – Sober Since November 2008 (Encore Episode)

Joe S. – Sober 26 Years

Emily M. – Sober Since November 1989 (Encore Episode)

Jeff S. – Sober 26 Years

Beth F. – Sober 3 Years

Leigh P. – Sober Since March 1995 (Encore Episode)

Teska M. – Sober Since July 2016 (Encore Episode)

Ryan M. – Sober 14 Years

Bruno R. – Sober 12 Years

Popular Podcasts

Howard L. – Sober 37 Years – Celebration of 175th Episode

Lauren A. – Sober Since June 2009 (Encore Episode)