Toi L. AA FemaleToi L. AA Female
Recovery Radio Network
AA speaker Toi shares an unflinching, often funny account of her journey from childhood alcoholism, prison and family tragedy to 18 years of sobriety. Her story focuses on sponsorship, service, spiritual growth and staying sober through intense loss and change.
1:00:05•5 Nov 2026
From Seven-Year-Old Drunk to Sober AA Woman: Toi’s Candid Journey
Episode Overview
- Early exposure to AA can plant a seed that becomes vital later, even if someone doesn’t stay sober at the time.
- Sponsorship and a strong AA family provide practical and emotional support, especially during illness and crisis.
- Handing over defects and problems to a higher power, rather than trying to control them, is central to her ongoing sobriety.
- Doing something kind for someone every day and telling nobody helps reduce self-centredness and keeps focus on service.
- AA principles can carry someone through intense grief and family tragedy without drinking, by reminding them they are a child of God, not garbage.
“Thank you for allowing this pissy, puking, fallen down, drunk of a woman to be transformed among you into a worthwhile, elegant, classy lady by the touch of the master’s hand.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This AA speaker, Leandra Antoinette Delaquan Ivory – known as Toi – offers a raw, funny and moving answer through 18 years of Alcoholics Anonymous experience. Speaking to a room full of women in AA, Toi traces her story from a first drink at seven, taken to escape daily abuse, through detox at 11 and years of chaos, crime, prison and geographical cures.
She doesn’t soften the edges: “I drank my liquor like I worked my programme, straight no chaser,” she says, mixing hard truth with sharp humour. You’ll hear how early contact with AA planted a seed that later helped her find her way back.
She talks warmly about sponsors and her huge “sponsorship family”, including over 100 women and hundreds of years of sobriety, and why being a giver rather than a taker has become central: “Today I try to be of maximum service to God, and the best way I can do that is work with the still-suffering drunk.” This talk is aimed at people in recovery who appreciate straight talking and spiritual honesty.
Toi shares practical ideas – from surrendering defects to a higher power, to doing a kind act every day and telling nobody – alongside deeply personal events: learning she was born from incest, losing her daughter and great-grandchildren, and supporting family members through addiction, prison and grief, all without picking up a drink. The tone swings between laughter and lump-in-the-throat emotion, but stays grounded in AA basics: meetings, sponsorship, service and faith in “the God of my understanding”.
For anyone wondering whether long-term sobriety is possible after severe trauma and destructive choices, this story offers living evidence that change can happen: “I’m not what I used to be… but I’m a hell of a lot better than I was when I got here.” If you’re feeling battered by life or just a bit "restless, irritable and discontent", could Toi’s journey show you one more reason to keep going?
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