Lorna K speaking at the Music City Roundup

Lorna K speaking at the Music City Roundup

What makes a recovery story truly inspiring? At the 13th Annual Music City Roundup in Nashville, Lorna K from New York takes the mic in her trademark cape and brings the room to life with sharp humour, brutal honesty, and a deep love for Alcoholics Anonymous. You’ll hear her describe alcoholism with striking clarity: "Alcohol and I had an incestuous, deadly dance together.

And it won." From that place, she talks about being brought to AA by what she calls divine grace, and how identification with another woman’s story helped her cross over from attending for someone else to finally being there for herself. Lorna shares vivid snapshots of her journey, from riding a camel called Bob Marley through the Sinai Desert and wrestling with grandiose spiritual expectations, to the tidal-wave heartbreak of a relationship ending after 15 years sober.

She explains how intense emotional pain taught her that sobriety is "God's sobriety" rather than something she personally controls, and how a gentle AA friend simply told her, "Just remember to breathe" while she rode out 17 months of agony. This talk is ideal if you’re already sober but wondering why life can still hurt so much, or if you’re new to AA and unsure whether you "qualify".

Lorna laughs at her own early grandiosity, her terror of being kicked out of AA, and her sponsor’s ban on phrases like "it's hard for me" and "I deserve". She moves from resentment into compassion, especially in the way she makes amends to her mother and recognises her parents’ own grief. Throughout, she ties her story to a wider spiritual thread and to AA history, reflecting on Bill Wilson’s choice to walk away from the bar towards another alcoholic.

Her message lands simply: don’t choose the "sure thing" of drinking, trust the programme, and let grace do the heavy lifting. Ready to hear sobriety described as anything but ordinary?