True Tolerance

True Tolerance

What are the common struggles and victories in addiction recovery? This RAW Recovery Podcast episode, taken from The Daily Trudge, centres on two big themes: making amends and practising what Alcoholics Anonymous calls “true tolerance”. It’s a chatty, unpolished, very human mix of AA teaching, storytelling and banter with live comments popping up from Amber and others.

Early on, Dion breaks down what an amend actually is, even reading out the dictionary: “Amends means compensation, reparation or an action taken… An apology is spoken or written expression of regret and amends involves a concrete action, changed behaviour or restitution to fix the harm.” From there, you’ll hear about different kinds of amends – in person, by letter, financial, and “living amends” like doing the everyday jobs at home – all anchored in one rule: changed behaviour.

The focus then shifts to “true tolerance”, rooted in AA’s line that all people, including ourselves, are “to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong.” Dion reads from the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 92, and ties it to real-life examples: staff at an under-resourced shelter, someone smoking in an empty room, and the choice to seek justice without trying to destroy anyone.

Hurt people hurt people, he says, and tolerance means seeing that the other person is sick too – “like who?

Like me.” There’s humour (Halloween chat, Michael Jackson jokes), some raw honesty about trauma, anger and social media, and a touching moment where Dion shares telling his therapist, “I’m a really good father… and an even better grandpa.” If you’re looking for a grounded AA-based conversation about love, tolerance, Step Ten, and emotional sobriety, this one keeps it real while reminding you that progress often starts with the smallest daily choices.

Where could a little more tolerance change your day today?