Al-Anon Saved My Life- And Then the Recover Your Soul Process Changed Everything

Recover Your Soul: A Spiritual Journey of Healing from Addiction, Codependency, and People Pleasing is available now on Amazon. If you are listening on launch day — April 13th — please grab your copy today and leave an honest review. It means everything. 🧡

It is book launch day. And I am so grateful you are here.

Eight years ago I was two months into sobriety, my family was in chaos, and my teenage son was deep in his addiction. AA was where I got accountable for my drinking. But it was Al-Anon that saved my life.

And then something deeper began to unfold. A spiritual awakening that moved through 12 steps, metaphysics, Buddhism, and a completely different perception of what healing actually is. And out of that journey came the Recover Your Soul Nine Step Process, and eventually this spiritual memoir.

Thank you Mattie Murrey for being my coach and Collaborator- she can help you write a book too!!!

The NEW book is here! Recover Your Soul- A Spiritual Journey of Healing from Addiction, Codependency and People Pleasing Get Your Copy !!!!! 🧡

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not allied or representative of any organizations or religions, but is based on the opinions and experience of Rev. Rachel Harrison or guests. The host claims no responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a result of the use, application, or interpretation of the information presented herein. Take what you need and leave the rest.

Transcript

Your Story Matters

Rev Rachel Harrison 0:30

Every single one of us has an impactful, important story to tell. And when we have the willingness to share our story, our story of healing and awakening, our ability to be present with our lives that have come from some pretty dark and difficult moments all the way to the incredible successes and joys, we begin to understand our soul's hero's journey. And in each of us, if we can truly see that we can rewrite the way that we see our past, that we can walk through a series of steps to release the harm from the past and begin to see the truth and the wholeness of who we are. This is what I call recover your soul. And today is April 13th, and it is the day of the official book launch of my new book, Recover Your Soul, a spiritual journey of healing from addiction, codependency, and people pleasing. And I am so excited and proud of this book because it's really our journey, my journey of healing from a very difficult and painful marriage, from being an alcoholic, being married to an alcoholic, having kids who struggled. We all have had these experiences, either in our own life or maybe as our sisters or our best friends, or somehow we've been affected in these complex ways. But what we're remembering is we have a journey. We are learning how to take responsibility for our own happiness, our own well-being. We're learning that we don't have to wait to be as happy as maybe our least happy child or friend. We can actually choose happiness and wholeness within ourselves. And that's what I hope this book gives you is a my walking through the path, but really your ability to walk through the path, to remember your wholeness, to come into the truth of who you are and to come out the other side in your empowered and embodied space of your authentic self. We're doing this together. And I hope that you'll buy the book today or another day, Recover Your Soul, on Amazon and share it with people that you think that it might inspire as well, because our healing heals the world. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to the Recover Your Soul podcasting community, a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. My name is Reverend Rachel Harrison. I started Recover Your Soul after having profound changes in my life from my recovery of alcoholism, codependency, people pleasing, and control addiction. I was guided to share the tools and principles of spirituality and the recover your soul process to help others transform their lives as mine was transformed. For us to overcome external circumstances, we need to turn the attention to ourselves, focusing on our interchange and healing. Positive results in our lives will follow. Well, we are here. It is book launch day. It is April 13th, 2026, and I am just so thrilled and excited to share that Recover Your Soul, a spiritual journey of healing from addiction, codependency, and people pleasing. Been quietly on Amazon for a week or so, but today, um, April 13th is the day that it's officially launching, which in the book world is this whole thing about how many people pay attention on a certain day ends up making a big difference on the long game of a book and how it gets brought out into the world. So I thank you if you're listening and you've been part of this community for jumping on the Amazon. You can go into the show notes. There is a link right now. You can jump in there and um get your copy either in paperback or on Kindle and read this story that's our story. And I think about how I got sober in 2018. So not only sobriety from alcoholism, but from my codependency and my people pleasing. And this is the walk, this is the journey that that I took. And it and it talks about how complex it was beforehand. If you think about eight years ago, April, it's only two months away from February, March, April. Yeah, so February, March, April, two months from my original sobriety date. And I was new, I was fresh. My gosh, eight years ago, I was still uh in the part where I was really missing drinking. I was showing up to meetings, my family was still in complete chaos, my marriage was still not that great. And just prior to that, I had been drinking myself to death. And I was in a situation in my life and in my world that felt completely, completely unmanageable. And my teenage son, Alex, was really struggling, had gone through rehab, had come out of rehab, had come back to a house that was not changed, had gone back to his really painful and difficult addictive behaviors. Um, my other son, who was finishing up school at the time, he was uh in college and was having his own finding himself journey. And I just was not happy. I just wasn't. And it was no wonder that I had drank so much to try to figure out how to calm a nervous system that was activated, that was in pain. And I had been going to a spiritual community. I had been going to a unity church. I had been raised by a Buddhist mother. You would think that I would have the capacity and the tools, but the more that I understand our souls' journeys is we have to go through the complications, the challenges, the difficulties that our souls came here to experience. And there is these moments of awakening, these moments of grace where we come online, our higher self comes online and reminds us that there's more. It reminds us that we do not have to completely fall apart. We don't have to collapse. We don't have to, we don't have to tolerate what is being affronted to us in our pain. It isn't that life isn't complicated because, oh, it's complicated and there's a lot going on, and there's a lot of people with all of their own stuff and their emotions and their stories and their experiences and their souls and their limiting beliefs and their pain and their woundedness. But we spend a lifetime trying to fix and control them and make them be better so we can be better. And when I started on the 12-step program in AA, and then I walked into the rooms of Al-Anon. It was Al-A-Non that saved my life. AA was where I could go be accountable for my drinking, but it was Al-Anon that saved my life and began to open my eyes into a different way of seeing, into a way of being um more present in how I was relating to the other people in my life. And those of you who've been with me for a little while, you know the story about how I got sober 15 years ago or so, and I didn't do it for me, I did it for my husband because I really wanted him to get sober. And so I didn't do really the program in the way that it was meant to be done, even though I had worked the steps and I went to some Al Anon meetings, but I wasn't ready to really take responsibility for myself and my own well-being and my own healing and my own awakening. And so, as this particular life chapter happened starting in 2018, something shifted. And what I think I want you to get out of this book is that this is us. That if you found this podcast, I can't tell you how many people say, I actually don't know how it showed up on my feed. Maybe you search to Al-Anon. If you search Al-Anon, thank God I'm one of the top podcasts that comes up on Al-Anon. If you search codependency, you'll find me. After seven seasons of podcasting, I've got a lot of episodes out there. And so some of those hit. But that's not why you find it. You find it because it aligns. You find it because this is the place where you are. And I have a voice that is a life that will speak to you. And for a lot of people, they'll listen to a couple of episodes and they'll get something from it and they'll go find what resonates and is more aligned with them. Good. There is so much out there. I am not the only path. I don't have all the answers. And if anyone's telling you they have all the answers, I'd have a little question about that. But there's so many ways to hear the voice. And the voice is you are enough. There is potential of healing and awakening within you. You can be with complicated and difficult things. You have everything you need inside of you. And I want you to go find the voice that speaks to you and gives you that message. And if it's me, I am so glad that you're here. I'm honored and privileged to have you here with me. And this book, which is the journey of my recovery, starting in 12 steps in AA, and then moving through and opening up into metaphysics and spirituality and seeing from an completely different perception, becoming a metaphysical minister, opening up to the channel that now comes through that I have more and more connection to, that you do too, when you are ready to listen to your higher self. But this book is not so much a uh like a deep tell-all of every single experience that's in my life. There's a lot that is not in this book that was in my life, and which is why the podcasts are so cool, right? There's a lot of stories that I've told in the podcast that didn't make it into the book, or a lot of things I have much more deep, long conversations that I can do in the podcast that you don't do in the book. But this book doesn't talk about all the really incredible relationships that I had that I didn't get to put in here, the incredible rich relationships that I've had with people, my best friends, the people that that came into my life and then it exploded and burned up and went away, but were great teachers. All of the relationships that I had prior to my husband, I don't mention any of those, but those were really important too, because we're all in this together, our soul's journey. And so it isn't about listing out and naming every single one because those are in us in their own pure form. But it's about witnessing for you a path and a pattern of beginning to shift how you show up in your life so that it doesn't hurt so deeply, so it doesn't wound you so much because people will continue to show up and wound, but we only can be wounded to the capacity that we allow it. And we allow it because we're still living from old conditioned and untrue and unhealed parts of ourselves that aren't bad. They're not shadows that are to be um seen as bad or wrong. They're aspects of ourselves that are here for our learning and for our expansion and for our growth, and for us to be able to see where we can change and shift from those things of not being enough to saying, yeah, I can totally see how I could have picked up that belief system because there is clear, real evidence that I received information based on the things that people said that looked you right in the eyes and said, You're not enough. Who do you think you are? Don't be, don't be miss big britches up here. You're not good enough for me. People say and do really, really difficult and painful things. But this book is about giving you a process to begin to shift those wounded pain stories into an earth school, into a school of understanding and growth where you look at them and you see them and you witness them and you take the parts that need healing and you love them. You give them compassion, you give them grace, you give them understanding, and you love yourself and you acknowledge and represent your own being and your higher self in a way that gives you everything that you need to release and let go of the past and its woundedness, and to see it as your soul's hero's journey because you have walked a road of the soul's hero's journey, my friend. And so this book is really an energetic offering that walks through the nine-step recover your soul process, a path to healing and awakening. Recover your soul is a spiritual path to a happy and healthy life. And if I look at where I was eight years ago, fresh in recovery, tired, overdone, stressed out still, but wanting so desperately to shift and change. And it took time. But what's interesting about recovery and interesting about spiritual healing is that it comes in spurts. And then sometimes it can feel like you know, people will say, Rachel, I was doing so good, and then I feel like I took steps backwards. You never take a step back. You always have an opportunity maybe to deepen and understanding because the more that we are really present and aware with ourselves, the more we are truly like in our healing journey, we're letting go of controlling and taking care of everyone else, we're turning the attention to ourselves. We are being responsible for our well-being, for our wholeness. And then when we have experienced that, when we've lifted up into that space where we can let go of all the woundedness and all the reactivity and the unmanageability and be able to look at our lives with what is, then we have the energy to be present with the experiences that we're having around us that often continue to be difficult. However, and this is what I think about myself in that early sobriety, those just a couple of months and eight years ago. There were these leaps where it was like something that had been a hook, a deep, powerful hook that made me just reactive and pained and hurt, like the hook unhooked, and it never re-hooked the same. Those are those moments when recovery can happen in these leaps. And then you can shift and see how you can be more um attuned to yourself and your higher self. And it's like your higher self comes online. And so this book is the walk through that process with me and how it profoundly changed my marriage from a marriage that had a lot of love in it, you know, it just we loved each other so much, but man, we bumped heads so much and just saw the world from such different views. And, you know, my husband was not that easy to be with a lot of the time. And my kids weren't always easy to be with, and I wasn't easy to be with, but we all loved each other so much. We were just trying to find our way to be together in a healthier format. We didn't have the tools or the skill set for it. And AA and Al Anon and spirituality and Buddhism and metaphysics and Christianity from a metaphysical lens gave me the tools when I could get out of my own way and be ready to heal. So that's what we talk about in the book. It's the nine steps. And they are being ready to awaken, being curious about yourself. Step one, ready for awakening, seeing that your perceptions, your beliefs, your stories, your patterns, they have a place where they can shift and that you're suffering is because of the way that you're choosing to see it. Not that it's not hard, but there's a way that you can be with it that's different. Step two, letting go of control, being powerless over everything outside of yourself. Not only am I powerless over alcohol, but I'm powerless over everything. Step three, discovering your beliefs, patterns, and stories that are underneath, that are in your subconscious, that are running your operating system, they're running how you show up, that you may not even know. And they come from, generally, from our childhood, from our experiences when we're younger, that created a way in which we see it. Step four, connecting to a higher power, co-creating with the higher power of your understanding. I'm metaphysical. You don't have to be metaphysical. You can be in your religion, you can have whatever spirit is to you, whatever God is to you, whatever higher power is to you. It's about claiming it, naming it, and being present with it and co-creating with it, turning your life over and being in union, letting go of separation and remembering you're one with something greater still, and that higher level of yourself as well. And then step five, letting go of the stories, beliefs, and patterns that do not serve you, releasing those, letting go of the parts that we've been so held on to that we didn't even know we're continuing to be in our front and we're oftentimes harming us. And then step six, which is stepping into your new perceptions, your new beliefs, your new story, and then rewriting your story, looking at your past, and instead of seeing all the woundedness, all the heartache, all the difficulties, you're like, whoa, I went through that. And look at how that brought me here. And now I can understand how this dot and this dot and this dot and this conversation and this relationship brought me to understanding here and that this pain had purpose. And I'm gonna live from a new perception. I'm gonna have new ways of being. I'm gonna update my belief systems. And then step seven, being in alignment, living in alignment, the practice on a regular basis of like you create your reality. Your life is what you think and feel and believe it is. And if you're coming from a healthier place and you're living in that alignment, you are going to start to experience an entirely different experience. And then step eight is deepening your spiritual practice, getting even more in touch with what is that for you? How do you do that on a daily basis? We don't live spirituality or live our spiritual self. We need to embody and be that self so that more often, when things are complicated, when we're in the stickiness, when we have a time when we're affronted, instead of falling into all those old repetitive, painful behaviors, we have a mindset and we have reprogrammed our brain and actually how our neurons work to choose a different way to be in it, to choose to see it from love, to choose to see everything from a more compassionate, loving, strength place. And in that, you do not become someone that gives rolled over like a steamroller. Things will stop harming you because you are unharmable. It's pretty profound. It's an acceptance layer that's pretty amazing. And then step nine is shining your light from this place where you have released what no longer serves you, stepped into your authentic self, you get to actually be more in touch with who you are, not who you're supposed to be, not how you're supposed to show up, not who you think people think you should be, not from that codependent people-pleasing place, but all of these aspects of yourself that are actually beautiful pieces of who you are, even as a helper or a peacemaker or somebody who likes to be there for people, but we don't do it from this codependent, sticky place. We do it from our wholeness. And there's more clarity about how to show up in each of those situations with authenticity, with connection, with um, ooh, with like our most rich self who can be in very complicated situations and hold space for it without judgment. It's a releasing of judgment. And it's not a path that you do one time, it's a way of life. You'll see in my memoir how it was a slow and steady process, and I still am living life. I am still a human being who is as faulted and has some quirky parts in myself, but I'm happier than I've ever been in my whole life. I'm more comfortable. In my own skin, and I'm more connected in every single relationship that I have, and I have more clarity about which relationships are healthy relationships and which ones are ready to be released. And all of this is your soul's hero's journey. And we're all here to have it. And it's sometimes going to take a short time, and sometimes it's going to take a long time. It's going to take your whole life to be able to walk this path. But we can and will awaken when we are ready and when we're willing. And I hope that this book gives anyone who touches it, reads it, that reminder that they are enough and that their connection to their higher self, to their higher power is really their um their journey into themselves. They say in spirituality, everything you need is within you. And we're just remembering. My hope is it through recover your soul, you too are remembering your wholeness. If you were listening to this on April 13th on launch day, I thank you for going to again, just go to the show notes and click the link and go to Amazon and get your copy. And if you are so called to write a review, this is about really helping the book to be seen in a way where it's given validation of something that is important. And I'm really proud of it. And for somebody who was in all the remedial classes and told her whole life that she wasn't very smart, it's a pretty big deal to have written this book. And I couldn't have done it without Maddie Murray, who is somebody who has worked this program, had profound shifts and changes in her life, and came to work with me on the book and be my collaborator. And she coached me all along the way as I wrote it, as I did transcripts and corrected transcripts and was in there doing all the things. And then she just came up behind me and just smoothed the edges. And so together, we are giving you this story, a story of healing and awakening. Thank you for being part of this community. Thank you so much for trusting me. And I'm so grateful that we're doing this together. Together, we can do the work that will recover your soul. Until next time, Namaste. Thank you for trusting me to be part of your journey to recover your soul and being part of this incredible community. There's so much going on, and I hope that you'll get involved. First, I want to invite you to our free first Monday of every month support group from 6 to 7 p.m. Mount Time on Zoom. This is where we come together in community, meet in small groups, and connect on our Recover Your Soul journey. I'm so excited to announce that on April 13th, the long-awaited Recover Your Soul memoir around my walking the steps that created the Recover Your Soul process and how it profoundly changed my life from codependence, addiction, people pleasing, an unhappy marriage, an unhappy life to what I am living today, peaceful, happy, and free. I also would love to invite you to join me for the Friday Recover Your Soul bonus podcast, where you get an additional episode taking a deeper dive into this amazing restorative process. You can become a Patreon member or an Apple Podcast subscriber to receive over 200 past episodes and get a new episode every Friday. Free members on Patreon have access to listen to new episodes for the first week. And of course, I'm on social media and I'd love to have you follow Recover Your Soul on Instagram and Facebook and even join the private RecoverYour Soul Facebook community. If you enjoy Rev Rachel's meditations, I encourage you to follow me on Insight Tiber for an entire catalog of guided spiritual meditations. All of this, along with ways that you too can work the Recover Your Soul nine-step process to healing and awakening, can be found on the website recoveryoursoul.net. And lastly, thank you for sharing this podcast and community with any friends or family that you think it would support their spiritual journey to healing and awakening. And those five stars and great reviews help us spread the word and increase the algorithm so we can reach even more people. Together, we can do the work that will recover your soul.