Tom's AA Podcast

This podcast is about what to do when you find yourself balking at a particular step with AA's twelve steps.

This podcast is about how to do Step 6 and Step 7 within Alcoholics Anonymous.

This talk goes into how fears drive our resentments, how they degrade our ability to be fully present, and how to write a fear inventory.

This talk explains how to get started with columns one and two of your resentment inventory.

This very short talk makes the case for why it's helpful to let yourself be angry as you get started with your resentment inventory.

An overview of key ideas in Chapter 4, We Agnostics.

This talk focuses on the very first paragraph of chapter 4, We Agnostics. A compact and useful definition of alcoholism is there. I talk about how to decide whether you have this disease.

This is a short talk about what the word 'agnostic' means and how it fits in AA's 12 steps.

More About Alcoholism, third chapter of AA's Big Book, explains why it is that alcoholics can't rely on self-knowledge to stay sober.

This podcast shows how to use part of Chapter 5 to better understand Unmanageability.

This short podcast focuses on the second half of the first step, unmanageability, and the Bedevilments found on page 52 of the Big Book.

This podcast focuses on how to find a conception of a Higher Power, aka God, suitable for a successful Step 2.

We dig into the Doctor’s Opinion from the AA Big Book and test its claims against our lived experience. We focus on physical craving, loss of control, and how to read the text line by line to see the truth without drama.Weird but importantWhat “physical allergy” and  “phenomenon of craving” meanThe five-step Vicious CycleBest practice: Turn statements into questionsDepth mattersUsing the set aside prayer to keep an open mind

We direct this podcast to those of us uncomfortable with the concept of God or anything that might be described as religious. (We'll get into the difference between "spiritual" and "religious" in later podcasts.) Obviously, these ideas will increase in importance as we go forward, but even in step one I'd like to do what I can to keep some of you from freaking out the way I did.

What is the mental obsession we talk about in 12-step programs? And why is it so all-fired important? This episode introduces the mental obsession and how Bill Wilson, the author of AA's Big Book, likely uses the term a little differently than you'd expect.

This episode helps people start Step One regardless of their fellowship. For alcoholics, that will be pretty straightforward. For people in other fellowships, it's important to customize your first step to fit the problem that has led you into your 12-step program.

This episode introduces the concept. We sometimes call the physical craving and other times call the physical allergy in AA.

This episode introduces the concept of powerlessness, why the first step is crucial, and why self-knowledge gets alcoholics drunk.

The focus of this short, six-minute audio only podcast is an introduction to why a person might choose to do the steps as outlined in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.