RRP 112 — Paul O. / One Burgundy Sock at a Time: Recovery, Service, and the Art of Staying - Real Recovery with Julie and Peter: Your Home for Recovery Stories

One sock. One moment. Thirty-plus years later, he still carries it.

Paul O., a long-term recovery advocate with over 30 years of sobriety, joins hosts Julie and Peter on Episode 112 of the Real Recovery Podcast to share hard-won lessons about staying, serving, and breaking the impossible down one sock at a time.

He was out of money and out of reasons. At the end of a long night with nothing left, Paul O. had a plan and a bridge in mind. He ran a quick inventory of the people in his life — and convinced himself, one by one, that they'd be better off. Then he got to his mother. And something stopped.

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That moment — where his mother's unconditional love became the only thing standing between Paul and the end — is where this episode begins. But it is not where it ends. What comes after that bridge is a story about 13 years of sobriety, a trip to New Zealand that unraveled all of it, a completed First Step that took 13 years to finish, and a lesson about burgundy socks that we promise you will carry long after you stop listening. You need to hear this one.

Paul O. showed up at his first AA meeting on October 7, 1991 — a lesbian stag meeting in Reno where they let him stay on one condition: they'd call him Pauline. He was so beaten down he said yes. He cried through the whole thing. And at the end, a tiny, tough Brooklyn woman named Kathy wrapped her arms around him and said three words: you keep coming back. He did.

What followed was early sobriety with all its chaos — two jobs to repay stolen money, a 6:30 AM meeting called Beginners Are Winners that became his foundation, and an unsolicited sponsor named Golfer Steve who showed up at the end of every meeting with something for Paul to do. And then there was the morning Paul came home to a destroyed apartment, every piece of clothing dirty, too depressed to begin. A voice started negotiating with him. Not all the clothes. Just the socks. Not all the socks. Just the burgundy ones. Not even all of those. Just one. You need to hear Paul tell this story himself — what he did with that one sock, and where it sent him, is something you'll be turning over in your mind for days.

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RRP 112 — Paul O. / One Burgundy Sock at a Time: Recovery, Service, and the Art of Staying

So much of Paul's recovery is built on this same principle — asking for just a little, and trusting the rest will follow. He told us about a walk near Mount Tabor, years into sobriety, when suicidal ideation had become a daily companion. What he asked God for in that moment, and what happened over the next 30 minutes, is one of the most quietly powerful things we've heard on this show. We're not going to tell you how it resolves. That part, you have to listen to.

Years into his sobriety, Paul met the man he'd marry — his Marlboro Man, found right there in the rooms of AA. Four and a half beautiful years. A move to Arizona. A slow drift away from meetings. And then, thirteen years in, a trip to New Zealand that became the trip of a lifetime for all the wrong reasons. Paul tells us he made a checklist before he took a drink at 13 years sober. It made complete sense to him in that moment. We've heard relapse stories on this podcast, but what Paul says he discovered about himself on the other side of that one — and why he calls it his completed First Step — is something every person who has ever questioned their alcoholism needs to hear.

"Sometimes when a task feels so overwhelming that you just gotta keep breaking it down to whatever you actually can do."

— Paul O.

Paul has been back in AA for about 21 years now. He lives in Springfield, Missouri, goes to a Sunday meeting he cheerfully refuses to name, and has spent those years developing a practice of learning to love every person in his home group — including the ones who make it hard. His metaphor for what showing up to meetings actually does — a fisherman mending his net, every single day — is something we both walked away still thinking about. His mother's advice for learning to like people who annoy you is something we're already putting to use.

This is an episode for anyone who thinks recovery is about the big dramatic moments. Paul O. will show you it's about the burgundy socks. Hear it for yourself at Episode 112, and read more on the blog. If you're not already part of our community, we'd love to have you — join us on the newsletter.

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