Katie P. West Island Roundup June 2026 Quebec, CanadaKatie P. West Island Roundup June 2026 Quebec, Canada
Mad Dog Recovery AA Speakers
Katie P. shares her long-term sobriety journey with humour, hard truths and stories of untreated alcoholism turning into deeper recovery. Her talk focuses on grief, self-will, spiritual work and the everyday "divine appointments" she sees in sober life.
1:08:57•20 Jul 2026
Katie P. on Sobriety, Self-Will and Divine Appointments
Episode Overview
- Simply attending meetings can leave alcoholism untreated without inventory, amends and daily spiritual work.
- Grief needs careful handling so it doesn’t slide into self-pity and block growth in sobriety.
- Alcohol is described as a solution to an inner malady, not the core problem itself.
- Writing and sharing inventory can expose self-centredness and hypocrisy, opening the door to genuine freedom.
- Daily two-way prayer offers a practical way to stay awake, aware and connected to a higher power.
“"Alcohol's the solution to the malady I walk around with."”
What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? In this West Island Roundup talk from Quebec, Katie P. brings 41 years of sobriety and a sharp sense of humour to share what she calls "a message of depth and weight". Speaking as a long-time member of the Primary Purpose Group in Austin, Texas, Katie mixes laugh-out-loud stories with very direct experience of untreated alcoholism.
She talks about losing two husbands, including one to a heroin overdose, and how grief can slip into self-pity if she's not careful: "There's a fine line between sorrow and self-pity, and for us, we can drift into self-pity if we're not careful." Her focus stays firmly on how to live sober, not just how to stop drinking. Katie explains why simply sitting in meetings wasn't enough for her.
She describes years of "meeting-based sobriety", road rage and explosive reactions, and contrasts that with the freedom she later found through thorough inventory, amends, and daily connection to a higher power. She stresses that "physical sobriety looks like recovery" but may hide untreated alcoholism if the inner work is missing.
You'll hear her talk about divine appointments, the magic of the Big Book, and her belief that "alcohol's the solution to the malady I walk around with", not the core problem itself. She uses outrageous bus-driving tales, parenting moments, and near-relapse experiences to show how self-centred fear plays out in everyday life.
Katie’s style is fast, funny, and deeply practical, aimed at people who are sober or trying to get sober and suspect that just "not drinking" isn’t giving them the life they hoped for. She keeps circling back to one idea: if the problem is within, then the freedom is too. Ready to look past the bottle and into what’s really driving you?
Do you want to link to this podcast?
Get the buttons here!
More From This Show
The latest episodes from the same podcast.