We dig into the Doctor’s Opinion from the AA Big Book and test its claims against our lived experience. We focus on physical craving, loss of control, and how to read the text line by line to see the truth without drama.

• Weird but important
• What “physical allergy” and “phenomenon of craving” mean
• The five-step Vicious Cycle
• Best practice: Turn statements into questions
• Depth matters
• Using the set aside prayer to keep an open mind

We direct this podcast to those of us uncomfortable with the concept of God or anything that might be described as religious. (We'll get into the difference between "spiritual" and "religious" in later podcasts.) Obviously, these ideas will increase in importance as we go forward, but even in step one I'd like to do what I can to keep some of you from freaking out the way I did.

What is the mental obsession we talk about in 12-step programs? And why is it so all-fired important? This episode introduces the mental obsession and how Bill Wilson, the author of AA's Big Book, likely uses the term a little differently than you'd expect.

This episode helps people start Step One regardless of their fellowship. For alcoholics, that will be pretty straightforward. For people in other fellowships, it's important to customize your first step to fit the problem that has led you into your 12-step program.

This episode introduces the concept. We sometimes call the physical craving and other times call the physical allergy in AA.

This episode introduces the concept of powerlessness, why the first step is crucial, and why self-knowledge gets alcoholics drunk.

The focus of this short, six-minute audio only podcast is an introduction to why a person might choose to do the steps as outlined in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.