I’m a member of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), Al-Anon, and Catholic in Recovery (CIR). As a Catholic, my recovery is inseparable from my faith, the sacraments, prayer, and the life of the Church. CIR has been a tremendous gift, allowing me to integrate the spiritual tools of recovery with the fullness of Catholic teaching and sacramental grace.
Yet I’m often asked within CIR why I continue attending secular 12-step meetings, and why I encourage others to do the same. Some Catholics worry secular programs conflict with our faith, but I’ve found they enhance it.
Scott Weeman, the founder of CIR, describes Catholic in Recovery and secular 12-step programs as “two powerful sources of grace.” I couldn’t agree more. And in my walk with Christ in recovery, I’ve learned to accept every grace God offers, no matter where from. At my lowest point, when I was spiritually, emotionally, and physically dying from untreated alcoholism and co-dependency, I got on my knees and prayed for Jesus to help me. He led me to the rooms of AA and Al-Anon.
For years, I knew something was wrong with my drinking. I tried everything to manage or stop it: morning promises, self-condemnation, switching from vodka to wine, drinking only after 5 p.m., vitamins, exercise, praying, making tearful vows to God, and white-knuckling it with willpower. I even tried reading the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous on my own. I understood the steps intellectually, but I kept drinking. Every day. I simply could not stop.
I desperately needed to understand what was happening to me, but the voice of my disease was cunning, baffling, and powerful. It whispered lies and shrouded truth in shame and denial. Alcoholism is a disease that hides while it destroys, and the obsession always wins. I needed voices as loud as those of my addiction—voices I could recognize and trust.
When I walked into my first AA meeting, I heard a woman share how she hid bottles of wine in a row of boots in her closet. I felt an immediate, undeniable connection. I’d hidden vodka in my daughter’s toy box. Another woman spoke of losing her job and husband, yet drinking again without hesitation, driven by the same relentless obsession I knew too well.
Once, I heard a woman share how, due to her drinking, she missed her son’s graduation. For years, she resented him for cutting her off. But through the Steps, she came to see how deeply self-centered she had been, prioritizing her immediate need for a drink over her child, and how shame and denial had kept her from making amends. Her honesty helped me see myself. I, too, had placed my compulsions above my children’s needs. I had stayed stuck in shame and self-pity, more focused on how I felt than on the pain I’d caused. I was able to admit my selfishness, identify my part, ask God for forgiveness, begin to make amends, and experience healing.
Their stories weren’t just theirs. They were mine: broken relationships, secret stashes, blackouts, and drinking despite every intention not to.
I couldn’t see myself by looking at myself, but somehow, I began to see myself by looking at others in these meetings. Through their stories, I began to recognize the disease’s exact nature, how it manifests physically, mentally, and spiritually. Most importantly, I came to understand my own powerlessness. Without that recognition, I would never have been willing to surrender in Step 1. Identification opens the door for surrender. And surrender is the beginning of freedom.
It was the same in Al-Anon. Those members voiced my struggles, too. One described pouring out her spouse’s liquor; another shared how she neglected her own health to manage her son’s drinking. Their stories mirrored my own. I began to see the wreckage my thinking had caused, even in my sobriety. Living with my husband’s alcoholism, I was consumed by control, fear, and people-pleasing, blindly trying to “fix” him while losing myself. Their stories broke through my denial and showed me I was powerless over his addiction.
I learned that self-centeredness often hides behind selflessness. I thought sacrificing myself to manage my husband’s drinking was noble, maybe even holy. But Al-Anon’s language of “detachment with love” revealed that what I saw as love was really fear and control. One woman shared how she stopped making excuses for her husband. She wasn’t abandoning him; she was reclaiming her peace and placing her trust in God. Through Step 4, she identified how her so-called “help” was harming them both. Her story helped me pray for my husband and step back from the fear and control that had been damaging both our relationship and my relationship with God. It preserved my sanity and deepened my surrender to the Lord.
That’s why I need both AA and Al-Anon. Each fellowship gives me the voices I couldn’t find elsewhere. A codependent can’t speak to my alcoholism the way another alcoholic can, just as an alcoholic can’t speak in the same way to the fear and control that consumed me in my marriage as a codependent. In 12-step recovery, identification is everything. We need to hear the truth from those who have lived our specific form of suffering—and found a way out.
Working the Twelve Steps is, at its heart, a process of surrender and letting go of what’s blocking us from accepting God’s grace. And while the Steps are the same across programs, how we walk them is not. The language of recovery, the slogans, literature, sponsors, and stories, all help uncover how each illness distorts our lives and separates us from God in particular ways.
I continue to need this type of support. Addiction doesn’t take a day off. Denial creeps in. Old patterns resurface. I need sponsors, grand-sponsors, and a large network of people like me.
Now, at ten years sober in both AA and Al-Anon, perhaps the most profound reason I stay in secular rooms has to do with Step 12: “carrying the message to those who still suffer.” We are called to be the voice of recovery for others and to give back.
As a sober alcoholic in recovery, I carry a great responsibility. There are so few of us compared to how many are still suffering. And as a Catholic in recovery, I have a special responsibility because I don’t just bring the message of recovery, I bring the light of Christ. I bring a personal relationship with Jesus, who saved and healed me. In doing so, I bear witness to a merciful, loving God in ways others may not be able to. A woman in Al-Anon once asked me to sponsor her, saying, “I’m an atheist, but the way you talk about your relationship with God—I want what you have.”
Answering this call to service has become one of the greatest ways I live out my Catholic faith. Mother Teresa once said, “Find your own Calcutta.” So, I go into the rooms of AA and Al-Anon, where people are at the bottom—hopeless, afraid, ashamed, and spiritually sick—and I meet them where they are, like Christ met me. This is why I go back: to live the Gospel. To follow Christ’s command to love one another as He loves us. I go back because I love my brothers and sisters in recovery.
This is the joy of loving people exactly as they are. This is the joy of belonging, of walking into a room and being fully known and accepted. And the greatest joy? That Jesus took the worst thing about me and turned it into the very thing He now uses for good.
With the help of AA, Al-Anon, and Catholic in Recovery, Ann A. is learning to live a full and peaceful life. She finds strength and joy in sharing her journey with others who are also affected by alcoholism and codependency, and in sharing the message of hope found in her Catholic faith.