I dreamt that you were twisting through seven suns of gold and the gypsy was insisting

that story must be told I came two in the morning but I took it as a warning that you might be a treasure.

I could touch but never hold.

Hi, everybody, and welcome to the Soberful podcast.

I am here with Dr. Pegg O'Connor.

Welcome.

Oh, thanks for having me, Veronica.

I really appreciate all the work you do with this podcast and with the Soberful program. You've really helped a lot of women. Well, thank you. So like, as I said, I get, I get all kinds of people reach out wanting to be guests on the podcast. So many inappropriate ones. And yours kind of stood out for me. It's a subject I'm really interested in. And I thought, and I was like, yeah, let's get her on. She sounds, that sounds really interesting. So Dr. O'Connor is a professor of philosophy at, I'm never going to be, you say where you're from, because I'm never, I'm going to mangle it. At Casta dais Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, it's a Swedish

Lutheran college. Ooh, interesting. And you have been sober for 34 years, is that correct?

35 now, yeah. They're grateful for that. Yeah, long time. Yeah, wonderful. Avoided Alcoholics

Anonymous for the first 20 years because of the concept of a higher power.

But you believe that philosophy has really helped, played a big part in staying sober.

And Dr. Connor is the author of a book which I have on order.

I don't have it yet, but it's definitely something I'm really interested to read.

Higher and Friendly Powers, Transforming Addiction and Suffering.

Also, the author of Life on the Rocks, Finding Meaning, Addiction, and Recovery.

There is so much to unpack there.

Where do we start?

Where shall we start?

Spirituality, higher power. Yeah. Tell me your take on all of that.

Well, thanks for that. So yeah, I was someone who got sober without Alcoholics Anonymous, without any kind of official treatment. And I'm still someone who kind of steps in and steps out of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm someone who still

struggles with that notion of higher power, particularly as it's typically understood in Alcoholics Anonymous.

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