Chris D. Medicine Hat Roundup- Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada 9/19/2026Chris D. Medicine Hat Roundup- Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada 9/19/2026
Mad Dog Recovery AA Speakers
Chris D. shares how years of half-measures, relapse and a near-fatal car crash gave way to a Big Book–based AA experience that changed his life. His talk traces the shift from merely attending meetings to fully taking the steps, making amends and sponsoring others.
43:43•22 Sept 2026
From Paper Slippers to Paid-Off Car: Chris D.’s AA Story in Medicine Hat
Episode Overview
- Simply attending meetings and using slogans without thorough step work did not keep Chris sober in the long term.
- A serious car accident and legal consequences pushed him back into treatment and opened the way to real change.
- Working the 12 steps as laid out in the Big Book with an active sponsor, including full inventory and amends, was central to his recovery.
- Sponsoring others and doing "intensive work with other alcoholics" has become a key part of maintaining his sobriety.
- Applying AA principles beyond meetings, into family life, finances and health, has transformed his daily living.
“"I stopped talking about the steps and I started taking them."”
What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? At the Medicine Hat Roundup in Alberta, Chris D. lays out a raw, often funny and deeply honest account of how Alcoholics Anonymous moved him from daily drinking and despair to a life he says he "cannot describe".
Introduced by his friend Mark, who remembers him "shuffling around in paper slippers" in treatment, Chris contrasts his first brush with AA 12 years earlier with what finally changed on 10 December 2022, the day he entered treatment in Medicine Hat.
He talks about doing "three meetings a day for 90 days", skimming the steps, clinging to slogans, and then drinking again after a year because he hadn’t done what he later found in Chapter Seven: "intensive work with other alcoholics". The heart of his talk centres on the difference he sees between being in recovery and being recovered.
He shares a harrowing car crash at 150 km/h, the moment he felt ready to die, and how he believes "God intervened" and spared his life. Even finding out his wife was pregnant didn’t stop his drinking; instead, a court date opened the door to treatment and a Big Book–based sponsor.
Chris walks through taking the steps properly this time: Zoom calls on his knees saying prayers, "stacks of inventory", tough amends (including to his mother-in-law), and sponsoring another man just two months sober. A key moment comes on a golf course in Phoenix when, after telling a server "I don't drink", he says "the obsession had been lifted".
This talk will resonate with anyone curious about AA’s step-by-step approach, the role of sponsorship, and what it looks like to bring AA principles "outside of the rooms" into family, work and everyday life. If you’ve ever wondered whether doing the full AA programme really makes a difference, this story might prompt you to ask what “going to any length” means for you.
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