How It Works
How It Works

RAW Recovery Podcast

Dion breaks down AA’s Chapter Five, “How It Works”, and Step Four while sharing personal stories about resentments, denial and mental health. The conversation blends Big Book guidance with everyday experience to show how thorough honesty and effort support recovery.

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28:12•31 Oct 2026

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How It Works: Dion Breaks Down AA, Step Four and Rigorous Honesty

Episode Overview

Resentments and long-held anger can seriously harm both sobriety and physical health, making Step Four work essential.
Consistent, time-limited writing on a Fourth Step and handing it over to a higher power can help with letting go rather than obsessing.
Recovery depends on rigorous honesty; being constitutionally incapable of honesty often reflects deep denial rather than moral failure.
Even those with grave emotional and mental disorders can recover if they have the capacity to be honest and engage with the programme.
Half measures in working the steps tend to bring no real change, so thorough effort is crucial for meaningful sobriety.

“Your alcoholism is not your fault. If we start pointing fingers at who's at fault here, we're never going to get to the recovery portion of the program.”

How do different strategies aid in addiction recovery? This RAW Recovery Podcast episode drops you right into a laid-back, slightly sweary Saturday session with host Dion as he walks through “How It Works” in Alcoholics Anonymous, grounding it in his own lived experience. You’ll hear Dion start with Step Four, explaining why resentments can be deadly for alcoholics: anger doesn’t just mess with your head, it “bucks with your body, man”.

He shares how he was taught to do his Fourth Step with a simple notebook, 15–20 minutes a day, then closing it and saying, “God, this is yours now” to learn how to let go rather than obsess. It’s practical, messy, and very human. From there, he moves into Chapter Five of the Big Book, unpacking lines like “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path” and stressing that “thoroughly is the key word”.

Dion talks about people who “cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program”, touching on denial and what “constitutionally incapable” really means, but without blaming anyone. As he puts it plainly: “Your alcoholism is not your fault.” He also tackles grave emotional and mental disorders, sharing his own diagnoses and how rigorous honesty allowed him to find recovery anyway. AA, he says, cleared enough debris for him to start facing trauma, anxiety and depression head-on. Half measures?

He’s blunt: “You put in half the effort, you’re going to get nothing.” Throughout, Dion mixes Big Book teaching with stories from his childhood, group homes, and the everyday chaos of grandkids and Halloween, keeping things real and a bit funny while staying serious about sobriety. If you’re curious about how AA’s core ideas actually play out in real life, this candid breakdown might be just what you need to think about how thoroughly you’re following your own path.

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