ESH: Lorraine KESH: Lorraine K
Sober Cast: An (unofficial) Alcoholics Anonymous Podcast AA
Lorraine K shares her journey from fearful, chaotic drinking to long-term sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous, highlighting sponsorship, accountability and family healing. Her talk blends humour with frank honesty about the pain of alcoholism and the hope she found in AA.
54:52•8 Aug 2026
From Princess to Sober Grandma: Lorraine K’s AA Journey
Episode Overview
- Alcohol can feel like relief from fear, but quickly becomes the centre of life and chaos.
- Keeping contact numbers and returning to AA meetings can be crucial when the desire to stop drinking returns.
- Sponsorship, regular check-ins and Big Book study help build accountability and sustained sobriety.
- Life challenges such as illness, financial loss and relationship problems still happen, but drinking is no longer the response.
- Family members may also find recovery over time, as long as they are still "breathing in and out" and there is hope.
“I stood in my bathroom and with everything in my body I did not want to drink… and I made it to noon.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? In this speaker meeting recording, Lorraine K from Lynnwood, Washington shares a candid and often funny account of getting sober back in 1990 and building a life in Alcoholics Anonymous. Lorraine talks about growing up in England, convinced she was a "princess", and how her first gin in a London pub felt like she could finally breathe after a lifetime of fear.
That feeling quickly turned into chaotic drinking, wrecked cars, liquid lunches in an Oklahoma barbershop, and becoming what she openly calls a "real alcoholic". She describes moments of clarity, such as waking up in a swimming pool surrounded by beer cans while her young children had no way to get help, yet still reaching for another drink.
You’ll hear how alcoholism tore through her family – violent rows, black eyes, bankruptcy, cancer scares and spiritual abuse of her children – and how AA gradually rebuilt those relationships.
A turning point comes when Lorraine phones a woman whose number she’s kept for 18 months and is sent to a meeting where, as she puts it, "for the first time in my life… I could breathe." She picks up a surrender chip, meets her sponsor Sandy and a "crusty old guy" named Frank, and begins working the AA programme through the Big Book. Lorraine’s style is straight-talking, irreverent and warm.
She jokes about being a "princess" and a construction worker with a sailor’s vocabulary, yet she’s deadly serious about sponsorship, service, and showing up: "I need to be accountable to somebody." Her story also carries hope; over the years her husband, son and daughter each find sobriety too, and she becomes a grandmother who can show up present and sober.
If you’re curious about how one person moved from fear and chaos to connection and responsibility through AA, this personal story might be exactly what you need today.
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