Meet Ibby A.  who has been sober since November 30, 1996, and shares her story of recovery from trauma and addiction, and how she views her recovery through a secular lens.
Key points discussed



* Childhood trauma.
* Geographical cures.
* Impact of defective relationships on addiction.
* The benefit of a self-appraisal.
* Repairing relationships with family.
* Early experiences with AA and white-knuckling it in the early days.
* Problems with the Big book and dogma of AA.
* How she learned to make the program work for her.
* Relationship with her sponsor.
* Using Al-Anon along with AA.



Memorable quotes

You can’t act this way and be a funtioning part of our society. You have to look outward and be caring of other people.
The trauma compounded with this layer of alcohol and drug use kept me in a lot of triggered moments which led to a lot of failures in relationships.
I always knew there was some problem that I could not identify that I needed personal help.

I don’t need alcohol. I don’t think about it at all, but I don’t need people in the Fellowship telling me that I need to do it their way.
I spend time in Al-Anon and have for fifteen years because I don’t want to give people advice, and if I want advice I’ll ask for it, but otherwise, we need to assume the competence of other people around us. That is a respect that I have come to believe is critical.

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