​One Day, One Choice, One Light Switch at a Time

Some episodes arrive at exactly the right moment. When Julie and Peter sat down with Lee Anne K. on February 12, 2026, they did not know they were recording on the 20th anniversary of one of the most painful days of her life. Lee Anne did. And she showed up anyway — with humor, candor, and an unshakeable belief that no matter how dark it gets, the light switch is always within reach.
​Lee Anne is a nearly nine-year member of the recovery community, a devoted AA participant, a proud straight ally, a pen pal to strangers, and, by her own admission, the podcast’s self-appointed number one fan. From Scappoose, Oregon, she brings a story that is equal parts raw and redemptive — one that travels from a first marriage entered too young, through relapse and treatment, to the life she has built with intention, grace, and a 140-item list of things to do instead of drink.
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This episode is about what recovery actually looks like when the cameras are off and the clichés run dry. It is about reframing. It is about self-care that does not apologize for itself. And it is about choosing, every single day, to turn on the light.
About Lee Anne K.
Lee Anne first arrived in the rooms of AA in May 2008, though her current sobriety date is March 12, 2017 — her nephew’s birthday, a date she holds as both anchor and reminder: she cannot be Aunt Lee Anne if she goes back out.
Her story does not begin with a dramatic rock bottom in the conventional sense. It begins with a young woman who married right out of high school, found herself deeply unhappy, and turned to alcohol as a way to escape the question she kept asking herself:
“What the hell did I do?
There was a stepson to raise whose mother had drunk herself to death. There was a husband who was later found to have another child in Virginia. There were compulsive patterns that predated the drinking — a depression-era scarcity mentality passed down through generations, a middle child’s hunger for recognition, and a need to fill something she could not yet name.
​Lee Anne is also candid about her neurodivergence. She was in talented and gifted programs as a child, attended private school, and describes her brain as one that does not necessarily work the same way as others. The same intensity that made her dance so hard at a treatment center karaoke night that she medically discharged herself the next morning is the same intensity that today fuels her pen pal network, her 140-item recovery toolkit, and her commitment to showing up for everyone around her.
Struggles and Turning Points
Lee Anne’s relationship with alcohol deepened in her first marriage and tracked alongside unhappiness rather than any single catastrophic event. She describes watching a Simpsons episode in which Marge challenges Homer to go 30 days without Duff beer and sitting there convinced her family must be watching her. The next day she texted them:
“I’m going to beat Homer Simpson.”
​They had no idea what she was talking about. She did 37 days — then a neighbor came over with a vodka orange juice and she decided she had already won, so it was fine.
​Her first real entry point into AA came through a women in IT meeting at Nike, where a colleague stood up and mentioned her 17 years of sobriety. Lee Anne nearly broke her neck turning around fast enough. After the meeting she could not get a single word out. The woman simply handed her a name tag with her extension written on it. That woman — Fran — became Lee Anne’s first sponsor, and colleagues even lent her their cars so she could drive to meetings.
“If you are in a dark place, turn the light on. There are light switches around, there are candles. You have a choice. You are responsible for your own happiness.”
— Lee Anne K.
​A DUI eventually led to required counseling, which opened a spot at Pathways in St. Helens — a treatment center she reframed as summer camp in order to get through the door. She danced so intensely at a karaoke event during treatment that she could not walk the next day, which led to a medical discharge before completion. She moved back in with her parents, then into their garage, then into an apartment with her son, relapsed while working a fourth step, and arrived at her current sobriety date on March 12, 2017.
​Two weeks after that last drink — not recommended, she is clear about this — she met the man who would become her husband. She told him immediately: she was new in recovery, her time would be limited. He respected that. He still does.
​The Work Lee Anne Does in Recovery
Lee Anne’s recovery is built on a foundation of practical tools, deep community, and a philosophy she keeps printed in rainbow colors behind her monitors at home:
I am living life on life’s terms. I am protecting my peace. I am forgiving others for not being how I expect them to be. I am responsible for my own happiness. I am giving myself and others grace and mercy. I am choosing to turn the volume down on things that do not align with my emotional, spiritual, physical, mental, intellectual, social, occupational, financial, environmental, and life goals. Self-care is not selfish.
Among the tools that anchor her:
  • Letter-writing. Lee Anne buys stamps in bulk and periodically reviews her contacts asking: who needs a love note today? She types 96 words per minute, and writes with the same ease. Julie keeps a portion of one of Lee Anne’s letters taped to her computer. Letter-writing, Lee Anne says, is therapy — a form of journaling that reaches outward instead of staying private.
  • The 140-item list. A running document of things to do instead of drinking: send love texts to family, cook a meal for someone else, review the church prayer directory and mail cards, read a comic book, dust picture frames. The list exists to interrupt negative thinking and redirect energy toward connection and care.
  • The 10-minute coin. Lee Anne distributes these to newcomers: one side reads Unity, Service, Recovery — 10 Minutes. The other carries the Serenity Prayer. Her message is simple: if you can wait 10 minutes, you might be okay.
  • Meetings. Lee Anne attends the Lunch Bunch / Extended Family online meeting, introduced to her by Colette, where she found the safety she had not felt at the men-only Monday meeting in Scappoose. She has spoken at NARA three times and at Pathways in St. Helens twice. She sponsors, and she receives sponsorship.
  • Allyship as service. Lee Anne makes it a point to love everyone with a beating heart — a value rooted in watching family members treated poorly for being gay or lesbian. She carries a straight ally sticker on her car and is deliberate about inclusion in every space she enters.
  • Nature and higher power. From her easy chair in Scappoose, on windy days, she can watch the movement of the trees between the houses. For Lee Anne, that is a glimpse of something larger — the God she grew up with, offering balance without demanding anything in return.
Lee Anne K. did not come to the Real Recovery Podcast with a polished narrative. She came with a clipboard of notes, a Lee Jeans t-shirt with her name stitched underneath the logo, socks that declare her a delicate flower, and 20 years of hard-won perspective on a day she once thought might define her forever.
​What she leaves listeners with is not a formula. It is a posture: face toward the light, protect your peace, love generously, and when the darkness comes — and it will come — remember that the switch is right there. You just have to reach for it.
Recovery looks different for everyone. Lee Anne’s version involves stamps and pen pals and a shitty attitude coin she brought back from the East Coast and a rainbow mantra on her wall. It is entirely her own. And that, she would tell you, is exactly the point.
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