Sober Cast: An (unofficial) Alcoholics Anonymous Podcast AA

AA History: An interview with Lois W (3+ hours)

This episode of Sober Cast is not an AA speaker, if you need to hear a meeting please pick a different episode, this is a bit of AA history. 

The June 24th episode of Sober Cast was Bill B telling his story, he was the author of the screenplay for the 1989 movie My Name is Bill W., as the author of the screenplay he spent considerable time interviewing Lois W. the wife of Bill W.

This Sober Cast consists of the three hours of interviews that he did with Lois regarding her life with Bill and the formation AA and Al-Anon. It is a really excellent quality recording of Lois speaking in great detail about her life before and after Bill got sober and became the co-founder of AA.  

Support Sober Cast: https://sobercast.com/donate

Email: sobercast@gmail.com

Sober Cast has 3000+ episodes available, visit SoberCast.com to access all the episodes where you can easily find topics or specific speakers using tags or search. https://sobercast.com

Topic: Gratitude (Bill W)

Bill W. Bill starts with the topic of gratitude and moves on to his story and how that led to the creation of AA at an unknown event.

This is from June of 1954 and I was able to remove the nasty hum it had, the result is a pretty good recording for 1954. This runs just a little over an hour and for the first 40 min the sound quality is pretty good all things considered. The last 20 min the sound isnt as clear, it gets a bit muddy and I couldnt fix that but it is still listenable.

Support Sober Cast: https://sobercast.com/donate

Email: sobercast@gmail.com

Sober Cast has 3000+ episodes available, visit SoberCast.com to access all the episodes where you can easily find topics or specific speakers using tags or search. https://sobercast.com

AA History: How the 12 Traditions Were Born - Sybil C sober in 1941

Sybil C had been sober for 39 years at the time of this speak, she is from of Los Angeles and is speaking on the subject of How the Traditions Were Born, a topic she lived while working in the AA office in New York at the time of their creation.

Sybil got sober in 1941 after trying for 17 years, at her first meeting she was asked to wait out in the hall because it was a closed meeting and they thought she was one of the wives, not one of the drunks, she was also the first woman AA member on the East coast. I was a bit shocked at how well this cleaned up considering how it sounded on my first listen.

Support Sober Cast: https://sobercast.com/donate

Email: sobercast@gmail.com

Sober Cast has 3000+ episodes available, visit SoberCast.com to access all the episodes where you can easily find topics or specific speakers using tags or search. https://sobercast.com

ESH: Dewey S - One of the first 100 members of AA

Today we have Dewey S, a chronic inebrist from Cleveland Ohio, he is one of the first 100 members of AA.

Dewey is speaking in Modesto California in January of 1969 at an unknown event. The quality of this recording is excellent, it cleaned up very well.

Support Sober Cast: https://sobercast.com/donate

Email: sobercast@gmail.com

Sober Cast has 3000+ episodes available, visit SoberCast.com to access all the episodes where you can easily find topics or specific speakers using tags or search. https://sobercast.com

Workshop: AA History (2.5hrs)

Changing things up a little and doing a Workshop Week. Ill be posting a (single episode) full workshop daily for seven days. Assorted topics and lengths. Workshop 6 of 7.

Bob S, sober in 1975 conducts a 2.5 hour workshop on AA History in July of 2014 at an unknown event.

Support Sober Cast: https://sobercast.com/donate

Email: sobercast@gmail.com

Sober Cast has 3000+ episodes available, visit SoberCast.com to access all the episodes where you can easily find topics or specific speakers using tags or search. https://sobercast.com

A play about the creation of the Big Book (1981)

This one is not an AA meeting, so if you need one please choose something else from our list.

This is a play about the creation of the Big Book written by Homer D and performed on Unity Day in San Jose California in December of 1981 by an unknown group. Please keep in mind this is a dramatization about the creation of the Book and should be taken as such, its historical accuracy should not be taken as absolute fact. I particularly enjoyed the arguments about the wording of the steps presented in the second half.

The audio quality of this is okay to good, it had a very nasty buzz that I was able to remove however it does occasionally sound a bit fuzzy or slightly hollow, the sound quality improves as it progresses.

For those of you that might want to learn more about AA history I suggest a visit to the leading international webgroup for the study of Alcoholics Anonymous history and archives.
AA History Lovers: https://groups.io/g/AAHistoryLovers

Support Sober Cast: https://sobercast.com/donate

Email: sobercast@gmail.com

Sober Cast has 3000+ episodes available, visit SoberCast.com to access all the episodes where you can easily find topics or specific speakers using tags or search. https://sobercast.com

AA History: Dr Harry Tiebout and Bill W

Dr Harry Tiebout speaking on the danger of ego among other topics is the bulk of this recording. He is followed by  comments from Bill W, they were speaking in Long Beach California in July of 1960.

Dr Tiebout served on the Board of Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous from 1957 to 1966 and was president of the National Council on Alcoholism from 1951 to 1953. He was a crucial part of the birth of AA.  

Wikipidia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Tiebout

Excellent quality recording for 60+ years old, it was sounding a bit muddy so I took it more to the top end, for your particular device you might need to add a bit of bass.

Support Sober Cast: https://sobercast.com/donate

Email: sobercast@gmail.com

Sober Cast has 2900+ episodes available, visit SoberCast.com to access all the episodes where you can easily find topics or specific speakers using tags or search. https://sobercast.com

Barry L sober in 1945 speaking about the origin of the 3rd tradition (LGBTQ)

I was in a zoom meeting today, the speaker was unable to make it and the secretary suggested a quick group consensus about playing this recording at the meeting thinking it would make a good discussion topic. As it turned out it did. I did notice the part where Barry plays a recording of Bill W speaking on the 3rd tradition was muddy so I went back at it and managed to improve Bills audio quality enough I thought it worth a new upload.

Barry L sober in 1945, speaking about the origin of the 3rd tradition at the 50th World Conference in Montreal in July 1985. He was (arguably) the first openly gay member of AA. 

Tradition 3 - The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking.

Barry passed away 3 weeks after this speak.

Barry is the author of the book Living Sober and was a great friend of Bill W and his wife Lois.

In 1978 Lois gave the original manuscript of the big book to Barry, and in 1979 Barry signed a notarized letter gifting the manuscript to A.A. World Services. In exchange, he asked only to be able to keep it in his possession until his death.

Somewhere between 1979 and Barry's death in 1985, everyone at A.A. World Services apparently forgot about this arrangement. The whereabouts of the manuscript remained unknown until it reappeared at an auction house in 2004, sold by a “Joseph B.” for $1.5 million. It was auctioned again in 2007 to Alabama resident Ken Roberts for $992,000.  A few months later, according to court documents, A.A. World Services rediscovered Barry's notarized letter and tried to legally regain possession, they failed.

In 2018 the manuscript was once again auctioned off, this time for $2.4 million.

Support Sober Cast: https://sobercast.com/donate

Email: sobercast@gmail.com

Sober Cast has 2900+ episodes available, visit SoberCast.com to access all the episodes where you can easily find topics or specific speakers using tags or search. https://sobercast.com

Workshop: AA History (2.5hrs)

Bob S, sober in 1975 conducts a 2.5 hour workshop on AA History in July of 2014.

Support Sober Cast: https://sobercast.com/donate

Email: sobercast@gmail.com

Sober Cast has 2900+ episodes available, visit SoberCast.com to access all the episodes where you can easily find topics or specific speakers using tags or search. https://sobercast.com

Topic: 12 Traditions - AA founder Bill W

AA founder Bill W speaking on the topic of the 12 traditions, this audio is from a film that was intended to be shown in AA meetings, the audio quality is some of the best I have found of Bill W (I did tweak it a bit to improve the clarity). 

Support AA: make a direct donation to AA World Services contributions can only be made by members of AA and can be made as an individual or as a group.

Learn more about the 12 traditions from the AA pamphlet: A.A. Tradition How It Developed by Bill W.

Support Sober Cast: https://sobercast.com/donate

Email: sobercast@gmail.com

Sober Cast has 2900+ episodes available, visit SoberCast.com to access all the episodes where you can easily find topics or specific speakers using tags or search. https://sobercast.com