Carolyn: Recovery from Al-Anon to AA – 465Carolyn: Recovery from Al-Anon to AA – 465
The Recovery Show » Finding serenity through 12 step recovery in Al-Anon – a podcast
Carolyn talks with Spencer about spending a decade in Al-Anon before finding she also needed AA, sharing how each fellowship addressed different parts of her illness. Their conversation touches on emotional sobriety, denial, spiritual growth and practical tools that support a fuller recovery.
58:30•17 Oct 2026
From Al-Anon to AA: Carolyn’s Double-Winner Journey to Deeper Recovery
Episode Overview
- Abstinence can mean both physical sobriety and emotional sobriety, including stepping away from codependent behaviours and numbing habits.
- Questioning alcoholism by focusing on your thinking, obsession and consequences can be more useful than counting drinks or comparing to others.
- Using prayers such as the Set Aside Prayer and the Seventh Step Prayer can open up deeper honesty in step work and everyday conflicts.
- Sharing shame and so-called character defects with others in recovery often reduces isolation and “terminal uniqueness” and increases connection.
- Al-Anon and AA can address different aspects of the same disease, and some people may benefit from engaging with both programmes at different times.
“Al-Anon healed parts of myself, but it couldn't get to the AA parts of myself.”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey? This conversation between host Spencer and guest Carolyn offers a rare look at moving from Al-Anon into Alcoholics Anonymous, and how working both sides of the family disease can change a life. Across ten years in Al-Anon, Carolyn saw her relationships and mental health improve, yet something still felt out of reach.
That shift – from measuring how much she drank to looking at how she thought and felt – will ring a bell for anyone quietly wondering, "Is this me?" You’ll hear how a move to a new city became the nudge she needed to try six months of AA meetings, and how that opened up parts of her story she says she had been “still hiding from my Al-Anon program.” She shares practical tools too, like the Set Aside Prayer and the Seventh Step Prayer, and how she uses them not just for step work, but before arguments, therapy and tough conversations.
As she puts it, "Al-Anon healed parts of myself, but it couldn't get to the AA parts of myself." She talks about realising that her drinking didn’t fit the stereotype of an “alcoholic”, yet her thinking, obsession and emotional chaos did. Carolyn and Spencer also talk about emotional sobriety, codependent “numbing” (from scrolling to sugar), and the uncomfortable dance between feeling “better than” and “less than”. There’s plenty here for anyone juggling family recovery, their own possible alcoholism, or both.
If you’ve ever felt like AA is for “real alcoholics” and Al-Anon is for you, this gentle, honest chat might have you asking a new question: what if parts of you belong in both rooms? So where do you see yourself in Carolyn’s story – in the Al-Anon chair, the AA chair, or maybe one foot in each?
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